Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

SPECIAL AREAS.

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Minister of Labour whether he has considered the representations of the Carmarthenshire County Council and other local authorities within the county requesting that certain depressed areas within the county be scheduled as Special Areas and brought within the ambit of the proposed legislation; and what action is proposed?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown): I have received the representations referred to. They are under consideration, and I must ask the hon. Member

Organisation.
Nature of work.
Location of work.
Estimated total cost of work.






£


Sunderland Royal Infirmary
Construction of new outpatients department, ward block, nurses' home and staff quarters.
Sunderland
83,500


Blaina and District Hospital
Additions to surgeon's room and mortuary, provision of ultraviolet ray and other equipment, and new motor ambulance.
Blaina
…
874


Rhymney Cottage Hospital
Provision of new X-ray room, nurses' bedroom, new ambulance and other equipment.
Rhymney
2,067

Captain Arthur Evans: asked the Minister of Labour (1) whether, in view of the fact that 40 per cent. of the insurable population of Penarth, Glamorgan, is unemployed, he will consider the inclusion of this district in the list of Special Areas when framing the new Bill to be introduced shortly;
(2) whether, in view of the large number of unemployed on the South Wales seaboard, he will consider the inclusion

to await the Bill which it is proposed to introduce.

Mr. Griffiths: Do I understand that these representations are being taken into consideration by the Minister of Labour?

Mr. Brown: Yes, with many others.

Mr. Day: asked the Minister of Labour whether the Commissioner for the Special Areas has made any grants to voluntary hospitals towards the alteration or extension of their buildings; and will he give particulars?

Mr. Brown: I would refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 247 and 248 and to Appendix XI of the Third Report of the Commissioner for Special Areas (England and Wales) Cmd. 5303, which covers the period up to the 3oth September, 1936. I will, if I may, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT brief particulars of schemes for assisting voluntary hospitals which have been approved since that date.

Mr. Day: Can the Minister say whether there are many applications for grants by voluntary hospitals in these areas?

Mr. Brown: That is another question.

The schemes are as follow:

of the whole of this district in the list of Special Areas when framing the new Bill to be introduced shortly?

Mr. Brown: In framing the new Bill, the representations made by my hon, and gallant Friend will be borne in mind.

IMMIGRANTS (IRISH FREE STATE).

Dr. Leech: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the resentment caused to unemployed men resident


in the distressed areas by the influx of competing labour from the Irish Free State; and whether he proposes to take any action to prevent employment being obtained by the Irish visitors while the local men are unemployed?

Mr. E. Brown: I have no authority to act in the manner suggested by my hon. Friend. In the case of vacancies notified to the Employment Exchanges, first consideration is given to local applicants and afterwards, as far as practicable, to suitably qualified persons from areas of heavy unemployment in this country.

Mr. Tinker: Is any record kept of how many are taken on?

Mr. Brown: I would like notice of that question.

UNEMPLOYMENT FUND.

Mr. Lyons: asked the Minister of Labour the amount standing to the credit of the Insurance Fund at 1st January, 1937, or the latest convenient date?

The following Table shows the numbers of unemployed persons, aged 14 years and over, on the Registers of the undermentioned Employment Exchanges at a date in December of each year from 1924 to 1936.


Date.
Maesteg.
Pontycymmer.
Ogmore Vale.
Aberkenfig.
Bridgend.


22nd December, 1924
…
1,053
156
783
730
308


21st December, 1925
…
840
551
435
384
577


20th December, 1926
…
896
1,695
390
423
1,463


12th December, 1927
…
1,598
1,269
426
846
742


17th December, 1928
…
2,302
1,649
583
662
844


16th December, 1929
…
1,516
782
473
625
754


15th December, 1930
…
2,083
632
575
614
945


14th December, 1931
…
3,816
1,631
636
679
1,049


19th December, 1932
…
3,997
1,352
1,987
772
1,133


18th December, 1933
…
3,298
1,497
2,008
739
1,100


17th December, 1934
…
3,439
1,166
913
698
1,031


16th December, 1935
…
2,993
982
871
786
1,263


14th December, 1936
…
2,618
949
780
706
1,120

WESTHOUGHTON.

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will instruct his local Employment Exchange officers, when recruiting labour for the new munition factory at Chorley and the aircraft factory at Bolton, to bear in mind the very heavy rate of unemployment prevailing at Aspull, Blackrod, Hindley and Westhoughton?

Mr. E. Brown: When vacancies at these factories are notified to the Employment Exchanges, and suitable

Mr. E. Brown: On 9th January, 1937, the total balance of the Unemployment Fund was about £40,000,000.

Mr. Lyons: Now that the Minister is in the happy position of having a substantial credit balance in this fund, is he also in a position to give the House any information as to the proposed allocation of the balance?

Mr. Brown: The Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee has recently been considering a report on this matter, and I expect it shortly.

GLAMORGANSHIRE.

Mr. E. Williams: asked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed on the register of the Employment Exchanges at Maesteg, Pontycymmer, Ogmore Vale, Aberkenfig and Bridgend, for each year from 1924 to date?

Mr. E. Brown: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

applicants are not available locally, particulars will be communicated to Employment Exchanges in the depressed areas in accordance with the normal practice, and the opportunity of finding work for persons of the required qualifications in the areas to which the hon. Member refers will be carefully considered.

Mr. Davies: When the right hon. Gentleman refers to depressed areas in this connection, does he regard the areas mentioned in my question as being depressed areas for this purpose?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member knows that they are already in the Schedule for contracts as depressed areas under the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Davies: But when the right hon. Gentleman talks about contracts does he not know that there are no undertakings to get contracts in this division? What is the use then of talking about contracts at all?

Mr. Brown: That makes it a little awkward.

Lieut.-Colonel Sandeman Allen: Would not the right hon. Gentleman consider any area which is so represented a depressed area?

WAGES.

Mr. Lyons: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can indicate the approximate upswing of wages for the year ended 31st December, 1936?

Mr. E. Brown: In those industries for which statistics are regularly compiled, the changes in rates of wages reported to my Department during the year ended 31st December, 1936, are estimated to have resulted in a net increase of about £487,000 a week in the full-time weekly rates of wages of about 4,000,000 work-people. These statistics are exclusive of changes in the rates of wages of agricultural labourers, domestic servants, shop assistants, clerks and Government employés, and they relate in the main to changes collectively arranged between organised groups of employers and work-people. It is estimated that, in the industries for which information is available, the average level of full-time weekly rates of wages rose by about 3 per cent. during this period, this being the largest proportional increase in any single year since 1924.

Mr. Lyons: Is not this record figure a reflection of the confidence created by the National Government?

Mr. Brown: The House and the country will draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Thorne: Is the Minister aware that there are very few instances of employers of labour giving advances of wages until they have been compelled to do so by organised labour?

Mr. Brown: I think one of the striking and welcome facts about this situation is that that is not so.

Mr. Lawson: Are we to take it from the answer that the only reliable information at the Ministry is that based upon the organised workers?

Mr. Brown: This information has been given for years on this basis.

Mr. Lawson: And it refers to collective bargaining?

Mr. Brown: It shows of course, the great advantage of collective bargaining.

Mr. Gallacher: Arising out of the original answer, does the Minister not consider that he would give real wages a real upward swing by pushing forward with payment for holidays?

LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS).

Mr. Liddall: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider the request of the licensed trade to extend to them, free of cost to licence-holders, by Order in Council, the hours for the sale of excise-able beverages so as to cover the period 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, except the Sunday, during Coronation week; and is he aware that the method by Order in Council, instead of by application to magisterial benches, will save expense and avoid variations of the terms of the permission to be granted in various localities?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir John Simon): My hon. Friend is, I think, under some misapprehension. Extension of hours cannot be effected by Order in Council.

YOUNG PERSONS (EMPLOYMENT).

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Home Secretary when the report of the Departmental Committee on the Employment of Young Persons in Unregulated Occupations will be published?

Sir J. Simon: I expect to receive the report in the course of the next few days, and it will be presented to Parliament, and published as soon as possible thereafter.

Mr. Davies: Is it intended to implement any of the recommendations in the report?

Sir J. Simon: I think we must await the report.

SPAIN.

Mr. Mander: asked the Home Secretary the reasons why action was not taken under Section 7 of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, to prevent British ports being used for the departure of General O'Duffy's Irish Brigade to fight in Spain?

Sir J. Simon: Before proceedings can be taken for an offence it is necessary, first, that evidence should be available which is likely to satisfy the Court that an offence has in fact been committed, and secondly, that after that evidence has been collected the person to be accused is within the jurisdiction. My information is that these conditions were not satisfied in the particular case referred to.

Mr. Mander: asked the Home Secretary when the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was first taken and considered with reference to the application of the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, to the civil war in Spain; and under what authority the application of this law has been suspended since July, 1935?

Sir J. Simon: The suggestion that the application of an Act of Parliament has been, or could be, suspended by the Executive Government is, of course, unfounded. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was advised not long after the outbreak of the civil war in Spain that it had from the beginning been illegal for any British subject to take service in the combatant forces of either of the parties engaged in that war, or for any person to induce others to take such service. That no proceedings have hitherto been taken for offences against the Foreign Enlistment Act is due, I understand, to the fact that the necessary information and evidence has not been available; but if some offenders have for that reason escaped as yet the legal consequences of their actions, it is important to dispel any idea that such offences can be committed with impunity. For this reason a public notice

was issued by the Foreign Office calling attention to the law on the subject.

Mr. Mander: Would it not have been better if the notice had been issued at the outset of the civil war in Spain?

PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES.

Mr. Day: asked the Home Secretary whether he will consider introducing legislation for the regulation of private employment agencies?

Sir J. Simon: A number of local authorities have already obtained, by local Act, powers to deal with this matter and I am not aware of any necessity for the introduction of general legislation on the subject.

Mr. Ede: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one effect of trying to deal with this matter by a local Act is that the more undesirable kind of private employment agencies simply move to the nearest convenient point outside the area of the local Act?

Sir J. Simon: No doubt that is theoretically possible, though I have not had that result actually brought to my attention, but this does appear to be a matter for the localities and not for general legislation.

Mr. Day: Has the Minister's attention been drawn to the fact that many agencies which have been refused licences to operate in the London area have moved just outside that area?

Sir J. Simon: No, Sir.

Mr. Ede: And when Surrey obtained an Act they moved out of Surrey into an adjoining county.

ACCIDENT, LONDON DOCKS.

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretary whether he can give the House any information relative to the death of Thomas Hurley, who was killed by the fall of a jib from a crane at the Hamburgh Wharf, London Docks; if he is aware that the jury brought in a rider to the effect that the accident was due to defective wiring and insufficient attention to the crane; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Sir J. Simon: I understand that the wire which lifts the jib broke and that the jib fell into the hold where the deceased was working and crushed him. The cause of the breakage is at present under investigation.

COURTS OF SUMMARY JURISDICTION (SOCIAL SERVICES).

Mr. Viant: asked the Home Secretary whether any steps have been taken, or whether it is proposed to take any steps, to carry out the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on the social services in the courts of summary jurisdiction; and is it his intention that any proposals arising from the report shall be considered by the House for approval before being adopted?

Sir J. Simon: The report of this committee is receiving my careful consideration. A circular has already been issued by the Home Office to justices on the subject of matrimonial jurisdiction and steps have been taken to give effect to certain other recommendations of the committee which are of an administrative character. Some of the recommendations of the committee cannot be carried out without legislation and these would naturally require the approval of this House.

Mr. Viant: Have any appointments been made in the courts arising from these recommendations?

Sir J. Simon: Perhaps the hon. Member would be kind enough to communicate with me, or to put a question down, and I will let him know.

MOTOR-CYCLE TRIALS (SURREY).

Sir Arthur Michael Samuel: asked the Home Secretary whether in response to complaints by a public authority, he is taking steps, with the help of the local police, to abate the nuisance arising from the stream of motor-cyclists at motorcycle trials on some of the public roads and lanes in Surrey?

Sir J. Simon: I have been in communication with the Chief Constable of Surrey who informs me that the police pay close attention to these trials and take appropriate action to deal with any infringements of the law.

Sir A. M. Samuel: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these motor-cycle trials in the lanes of Surrey are actually imperilling the lives of pedestrians?

Sir J. Simon: I am sure the police have that consideration in mind, but, of course, if the matter is one of the regulation of traffic, I rather think that it must come under the Road Traffic Act or the local by-laws.

Sir A. M. Samuel: Will the right hon. Gentleman get into touch with the proper authorities and ask them to see that people's lives are no longer imperilled by this nuisance?

Sir J. Simon: I think the fact that my hon. Friend has asked this question, will call attention to it. No doubt the matter is being considered.

Mr. Ede: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for one of these trials to take place at Walton Heath where he can watch it?

Sir J. Simon: I always keep my eye on the ball.

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS.

Mr. Whiteley: asked the Home Secretary the number of fatal accidents during 1936 among men working the electric and acetylene welding and burning machines in confined spaces in shipbuilding and boiler-making establishments?

Sir J. Simon: During 1936 no fatal accident occurred to workers engaged on electric welding in shipbuilding or boiler-making establishments: there is, however, record of the death of one worker who had been working on an acetylene welder on repair work to a ship, and according to the verdict at the inquest this death was due to heart disease accelerated by gassing.

DANGEROUS DRUGS (THEFT).

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Home Secretary whether he proposes to take any action to prevent the recurrence of cases in which members of the medical profession have had dangerous drugs stolen from their motor cars.

Sir J. Simon: No, Sir; I have no grounds for thinking that these thefts are


other than ordinary cases of petty larceny, and I do not think there is any action I can usefully take in the matter.

Mr. Davies: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that some responsibility ought to be placed upon the medical profession for neglecting to take care of these dangerous drugs?

Sir J. Simon: I think that the remedy here is the exercise of care by the individual who has such a package in his charge. When we consider what a large number of people are moving about—skilled doctors who are attending medical cases—very many of whom have something of the sort with them, I do not know that the number of cases is very surprising.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

RATING (CARMARTHENSHIRE).

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will make representations to the Carmarthenshire County Council to abolish the differential education rate which they levy, inasmuch as it is the only education authority that persists in retaining this method of rating for educational purposes and in view of the fact that this differential rate presses most heavily on the depressed areas within the county?

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Oliver Stanley): The Board have drawn the attention of this authority, on more than one occasion in recent years, to the prejudicial effect on educational developments in their area of the policy of charging capital expenditure on localities which cannot afford the additional cost. The matter is, however, entirely one within the discretion of the county council under Section 122 of the Education Act, 1921, and they have not so far been willing to make any change. I am afraid that I can see no grounds for thinking that further representations from me at the present time would serve any useful purpose.

Mr. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the effect, not only educationally but industrially, of this rate, consider the possibility of renewing his representations to this authority?

Mr. Stanley: I think that the possibility of renewing my representations depends more on the chance of their being

successful than anything else. I have already said that I should like to see them accepted.

Mr. Griffiths: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that if he renewed his representations now they would stand a better chance of success than they did last time?

LINCOLN EDUCATION COMMITTEE (EMPLOYES).

Mr. Leach: asked the President of the Board of Education whether the action of the Lincoln Education Committee in insisting that the whole of its employés shall reside within the city boundaries has his approval; and under what statutory authority are such conditions of employment enforced?

Mr. Stanley: I understand that the conditions as to residence mentioned in the question are to be incorporated in the contracts between the employés and the local education authority, subject to special consideration of cases where it is represented that they would cause hardship to existing employés. The inclusion of such conditions in contracts needs no statutory authority or official approval.

Mr. Leach: The Minister did not answer the first part of my question as to whether this practice met with his approval or not. I would like to ask him also what is the limit of power possessed by a local education authority over the bodies and souls of its employés?

Mr. Stanley: That is an entirely different question which perhaps the hon. Member will put down. With regard to the question whether I approve, I say that this is a matter for local decision, and whether I approve or not must depend on the circumstances of the locality.

Sir Percy Harris: Is not the right hon. Gentleman a partner in finding the expenses of teachers' salaries, and does he not think he is entitled, at any rate, to give a lead to local authorities against this interference with the lives of private individuals?

Mr. Stanley: It is definitely a matter that ought to be left to the localities.

Mr. Liddall: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the actual date of the appointment of this insignificant, unofficial and, therefore, irresponsible spokesman of Lincoln?

Mr. Thurtle: On a point of Order. I understood from a Ruling of yours the other day that epithets were out of order.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member was too quick for me.

Mr. Leach: Is it not very possible, indeed probable, that practices of this sort by local authorities will prejudice the quality of the material that goes to the teaching profession there? Does it not, therefore, become at once a matter of great importance to the Minister that he should deal with it?

Mr. Stanley: If it had that effect on the quality of the teaching profession it might become my business, but I have

Black List position on 31st December, 1935.






Council Schools.
Voluntary Schools.
Total.






A.
B.
C.
Total.
A.
B.
C.
Total.
A.
B.
C.
Total.


(1)
Original Totals
…
…
219
345
150
714
460
1,421
232
2,113
679
1,766
382
2,827


(2)
Removed from List on 31st December, 1935—















(a) Closed or replaced
145
58
9
212
173
97
17
287
318
155
26
499



(b) Defects remedied
33
185
72
290
134
709
93
936
167
894
165
1,226



(c) Total
…
…
178
243
81
502
307
806
110
1,223
485
1,049
191
1,725


(3)
Number of Schools still in the Black List.*
61
188
83
332
118
538
114
770
179
726
197
1,102


(4)
Removed from List on 31st December, 1934.
169
226
76
471
300
778
104
1,182
469
1,004
180
1,653

Black List position on 51st December, 1936.






Council Schools.
Voluntary Schools.
Total.






A.
B.
C.
Total.
A.
B.
C.
Total.
A.
B.
C.
Total.


(1)
Original Totals
…
…
219
345
150
714
460
1,421
232
2,113
679
1,766
382
2,827


(2)
Removed from List on 31st December, 1936—















(a) Closed or replaced
145
62
10
217
177
106
18
301
322
168
28
518



(b) Defects remedied
36
192
79
307
143
728
98
969
179
920
177
1,276



(c) Total
…
…
181
254
89
524
320
834
116
1,270
501
1,088
205
1,794


(3)
Number of Schools still in the Black List.*
58
182
75
315
104
507
107
718
162
689
182
1,033


(4)
Removed from List on 31st December, 1935.
178
243
81
502
307
806
110
1,223
485
1,049
191
1,725


* These figures (other than the Grand Total) do not agree exactly with the difference between 1 and 2 (c) owing to (i) the original category having been changed in the case of a few schools, and (ii) some Voluntary Schools having been transferred to the L.E.A. since the issue of the Black List.

SAFETY.

Mr. Viant: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he has given consideration to the recommendations

no reason to think that it will have that effect.

BLACK LIST.

Mr. George Griffiths: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he will give, with figures to 31st December, 1935, and, if possible, 1936, the table of schools removed from the black list which appears on page 10 of the 1934 Report of the Board of Education?

Mr. Stanley: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

of the committee on the safety of schoolchildren; and, if so, what action he proposes to take to give effect to those recommendations?

Mr. Stanley: Copies of the report of the committee were circulated to all local education authorities and schools in England and Wales in April last and at the same time I sent a circular, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy, to all local education authorities asking them to give most careful consideration to the recommendations of the report.

Mr. Viant: Was there any consultation with the Ministry of Transport in connection with the recommendations?

Mr. Stanley: Of course, consultations took place on the committee which issued them.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

SCARLET FEVER (DONCASTER AREA).

Mr. Short: asked the Minister of Health whether he can make any statement respecting the recent outbreak of scarlet fever in Doncaster and area; whether any proof has been obtained as to whether the outbreak was due to a polluted milk supply; and, if so, what steps are being taken to prevent similar outbreaks in the future?

The Minister of Health (Sir Kingsley Wood): Some 160 cases of scarlet fever occurred in Doncaster and the adjoining rural district in the recent outbreak, together with a considerable number of cases of sore throat. I am advised that the outbreak was due to the infection of milk from one farm. When the particular milk supply had been identified as the source of infection arrangements were made for the pasteurisation of all milk coming from that source. As regards the general question, I cannot add anything at present to the answer I gave on this subject to the hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) on 12th November, of which I will send the hon. Member a copy.

Mr. Short: Will the milk producer be prosecuted in this case?

Mr. MacLaren: No, he will get a subsidy.

PHYSICAL TRAINING.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the Minister of Health whether he has any statement to make regarding a Government scheme for national physical training?

Sir K. Wood: The Government hope very shortly to lay before Parliament a full statement of their proposals, and I would ask the hon. and gallant Member to await its issue.

Sir Joseph Nall: Will that include the reinstatement of cadet corps where they have been discontinued?

Mr. James Griffiths: Will it also include the abolition of the means test?

DEAL AND WALMER (AMALGAMATION).

Sir Walter Smiles: asked the Minister of Health the object of the amalgamation of the Walmer Urban Council with Deal Corporation in 1935; and whether that object has been successfully achieved?

Sir K. Wood: The object of the amalgamation was that the single urban aggregation formerly divided between these two councils should form a single unit for the purposes of local government. This object was achieved by the Order made in 1935, and I have no reason to suppose that the operation of the Order is presenting difficulty.

Sir W. Smiles: May I ask whether the rates of Walmer have gone up or down since the amalgamation, and whether the people of Walmer are paying more?

Sir K. Wood: I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will give me notice of that question.

Mr. Petherick: Has not the Walmer Urban District Council had a fair deal?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

EXCHEQUER CONTRIBUTIONS.

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister of Health (1) whether consideration has been given to the position which may arise on 31st March, 1938, when the Exchequer contribution in respect of the provision of re-housing accommodation for persons displaced from houses dealt with by local authorities under the Housing Act, 193o, will have expired?
(2) whether he can give an assurance that local authorities will not suffer financially where they have not been able to complete their housing programme under the 1930 Act before March, 1938?

Sir K. Wood: Exchequer contributions will continue at the present rate until 31st March, 1938. The contributions in respect of houses which are not completed until after that date will depend on the result of the review which has to be undertaken after 1st October, 1937, and will be provided for in an Order to be made after that review. As I stated in reply to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) on 8th December, I will approach the question with a full sense of all the issues involved, including the importance to the health services of the country of the completion of the slum clearance campaign.

REDECORATIONS.

Major Hills: asked the Minister of Health whether he will suggest to local authorities and others the desirability of marking the Coronation year by improving the appearance and the condition of houses and other buildings by a general repainting and redecoration, and of beginning the work forthwith so as to stimulate employment during the slack months of the year and to prevent congestion of orders at a later date?

Sir K. Wood: I do not think this is a matter in which I could usefully approach the local authorities, but I have no doubt that the advantages resulting from repainting and redecoration as suggested will be generally appreciated by local authorities and the public. The consideration referred to in the latter part of the question will, I am sure, not be overlooked.

LEEDS.

Mr. Leach: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that a majority of the Leeds City Council are refusing to allow their housing director to undertake the building of municipal houses, notwithstanding his undertaking to erect them at rates considerably lower than those of the tenders received from any other source; and will he represent to that body that they should act so as to save public money in the matter?

Sir K. Wood: The matter is one for decision by the city council in view of all the circumstances affecting building in the locality. I understand that at the present moment the council have in hand about 5,400 houses, for which contracts have been let but which are not yet completed.

Mr. Leach: Is it no concern of the Department what these houses cost?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, certainly.

Mr. Mabane: Is not the recent unhappy experience of Leeds under a Labour council a justification for the action taken in this case?

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: asked the Minister of Health whether he will explain the reasons why seasonal workers employed in picking beans are subject to the provisions of the National Health Insurance Act while workers similarly engaged in picking peas are not subject to such insurance; and, the two occupations being practically identical, whether steps can be taken to remove the existing anomaly and to treat both these employments for the purpose of health insurance similarly?

Sir K. Wood: The relevant provision is an Order made under the National Health Insurance Act specifying the gathering of peas as an occupation that is ordinarily adopted as a subsidiary employment only and not as the principal means of livelihood. That is to say, it is ordinarily undertaken by persons who have some other regular occupation which they follow throughout the year. The evidence considered in connection with the making of the Order showed that bean-picking was not such an occupation, but was ordinarily undertaken as one of a series of casual employments on which, taken together, the persons employed were dependent for their livelihood. I shall, of course, be pleased to consider any representations which my hon. Friend may wish to make on the subject.

Mr. Logan: How many beans will a man have to pick before he is entitled to be insured?

Mr. Ede: Five.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH (STAFF ACCONIMODATION).

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied regarding the accommodation of the staff at the Ministry; how many of the staff work in basement rooms and for


what periods of time; whether there is overcrowding in any of the rooms; whether all rooms occupied by staff have direct communication with the air; whether any of the rooms necessitate the use of artificial light throughout the working day; and what representations regarding the office accommodation have been received from the staff associations?

Sir K. Wood: I have from time to time received representations from the Departmental Whitley Council about the accommodation provided for the staff of my Department. All such representations are carefully considered and, where necessary, brought to the notice of the Office of Works. In general the accommodation in the Ministry is satisfactory. About 50 to 55 clerks spend a normal working day of about six hours for three months at a time in the basement courts, which are large, light and well-ventilated rooms. About 30 other clerks work in a basement court about one hour every morning. There is no overcrowding in any part of my Department; the only staff rooms not in direct communication with the open air are five messenger boxes—

Mr. MacLaren: And the Minister's office?

Sir K. Wood: Natural lighting in the rooms is generally good and in only a very small proportion of cases is it necessary for any officer to resort to artificial light all day under normal weather conditions.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Are there any complaints outstanding at the present moment?

Sir K. Wood: I am not aware that there are, but I will inquire and inform the hon. and gallant Member.

EX-SERVICE MEN.

Mr. Sandys: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether His Majesty's Government will consider reserving a larger proportion of vacancies in the Post Office and other Government departments for members of the armed forces upon the completion of their service?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by the Prime Minister on 7th December last to the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox), of which I am

sending him a copy, which indicated that the whole matter is being specially considered.

Mr. Davidson: Will the right hon. and gallant member keep in mind the thousands of ex-Service men who are already walking the streets?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: All the relevant facts will be kept in mind in connection with the inquiry.

TYPEWRITERS.

Mr. Lyons: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of typewriters purchased for and by all departments of State for the year 1936, and the number of British manufacture so purchased?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: The total number of typewriters purchased by the Stationery Office for all Departments of State during the year 1936 was 3,734, of which 3,698 were of British manufacture.

Mr. Lyons: In view of the fact that this state of affairs has beneficial repercussions on the industries concerned in making these machines in this country, will the policy he has just indicated be continued?

BANKING AND INDUSTRY

Mr. Day: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is the intention of the Government to take any further steps with the object of encouraging a closer relationship between the banks and industry in order that the advantages obtained by industry abroad may be available to those who require same in Great Britain?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: While the relations between banking and industry vary in different countries, I am not aware, broadly speaking, that advantages of the kind indicated in the question are obtained by industry abroad but are not available to industry in this country at the present time. The question does not, therefore, appear to arise.

Mr. Day: Will the Minister investigate the conditions in Germany and the United States?

Sir A. M. Samuel: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend ask the hon. Member


to produce evidence in support of his imputation that credit worthy borrowers in British industry are not receiving support from British banks?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: The experience of the crisis of 1931 and since has been rather to confirm the soundness of British banking practice and, certain other countries have assimilated their practice to it.

BRITISH-PRODUCED PETROL (SUBSIDY).

Mr. Simmonds: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the recent increase of one halfpenny per gallon on home-produced as well as imported petrol is being accompanied by an equal reduction in the amount of subsidy payable by His Majesty's Government?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: No subsidy is payable in this connection, but my hon. Friend may have in mind the provisions of the British Hydrocarbon Oils Production Act, 1934, under which, subject to certain limitations, light hydrocarbon oils manufactured in the United Kingdom from indigenous materials are guaranteed a preference of not less than 4d. per gallon until 31st March, 1944. These arrangements are not affected by increases or decreases in the price of petrol.

Mr. Simmonds: Does that mean that every time there is an increase in the cost of imported petrol, with a consequent rise in the combine prices in this country, the increase in price will be equivalent to profit to the home-producing companies?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: The hon. Member should study the provisions of the Act. I can hardly be expected at Question Time to explain all its provisions. His original question related to a subsidy, and I have pointed out that a subsidy is not payable.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (BRITISH MACHINERY).

Mr. E. Smith: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will take steps to see that all firms who secure Government contracts will, in

future, purchase machines which have been manufactured in Britain or in other countries approved by the Treasury?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: No, Sir. I would remind the hon. Member that any firm importing machinery is required to pay the appropriate rate of duty, unless it can be established that similar machinery is not for the time being procurable in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Smith: Is the right hon. and gallant Member aware of the setting up of a company known as Compensation Company? Are the Government aware of the objects of this company and do they approve of the policy being pursued by the company?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: That apparently raises a separate matter.

ROYAL MINT (PROFIT).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the amount of profit made by the Royal Mint for the year ended 1935–36 to the nearest available date; and also the amount paid to the Treasury?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville: In the financial year 1935–36, the Mint's cash receipts in excess of those applied as appropriations in aid to balance expenditure amounted to £320,647 18s. 6d., which was duly paid to the Exchequer as surplus receipts.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

MILK REORGANISATION COMMITTEE.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Milk Reorganisation Committee's Report will be followed by legislation to amend or alter the present Milk Board's scheme; and, if so, will he bring in that legislation before the summer Recess in 1937?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I am not yet able to make any statement upon the subject.

Brigadier-General Brown: Will my right hon. Friend remember that the contract period begins next October, and that something must be done before then?

Mr. Morrison: I am aware of the fact that some legislation will be necessary before the House adjourns, but I am not prepared to say whether it will be of the scope which my hon. and gallant Friend indicates in his question. The report raises a number of issues, and consultation with other Departments will be necessary.

Mr. Macquisten: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware how many Members have read that enormously long report? Is he aware that the only one who is likely to have read it is the Noble Lady the Member for West Perth (Duchess of Atholl)? Nobody else has the time.

POULTRY INDUSTRY.

Major Hills: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he intends taking any steps to protect the poultry industry in view of the fall in the price of eggs and the rise in the cost of feeding stuffs?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: An application for increases in the import duties on foreign eggs imported into the United Kingdom was recently lodged with the Import Duties Advisory Committee, and I am not at present in a position to make any announcement on the subject.

Mr. Gallacher: Would the Minister not give special attention to this question as it affects Scotland?

Mr. Morrison: Questions relating to agriculture in Scotland are answered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Has the Minister received the report from the Advisory Committee? If not, can he say when he expects to do so?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, I cannot say that.

Mr. Muff: Is the Minister aware that the fall in the price of eggs lasted only five days?

Mr. Morrison: I am aware that the monthly figure for the price of eggs last year, except for August and December, was higher than in 1935 and 1934.

TYNESIDE LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Prime Minister whether he can now state when the Royal Commission upon Tyneside

Local Government is expected to make its report?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Baldwin): I am not in a position to add anything to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on l0th November last in reply to a question on this subject.

Mr. Adams: In view of the considerable number of industrial undertakings, municipal and private, which have been held up pending the report of this commission, may we not have some approximate date?

The Prime Minister: I do not think it will be very long, and I will see that the hon. Member, who has displayed some interest in this matter, is communicated with when I am ready to answer a question.

RURAL AMENITIES (PRESERVATION).

Mr. Lovat-Fraser: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the rapid and widespread destruction of the beauty of Great Britain, he will consider the appointment of a Minister of Amenities to combat this destruction?

The Prime Minister: While I have every sympathy with the object which my hon. Friend has in view, I do not consider that the appointment of an additional Minister for the purpose would be justified.

COMMON LANDS (SURVEY).

Mr. Ede: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will promote legislation authorising county councils or some other competent authority to make a survey of common lands in accordance with the recommendation of the Departmental Committee on National Parks?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: As the hon. Member is aware, such a survey would be bath complicated and lengthy, and I regret that I cannot at present promise legislation on the lines suggested?

Mr. Ede: Is not the fact that it would be complicated and lengthy an additional reason for getting on with it quickly?

Mr. Morrison: We are certainly not losing sight of the matter. We are considering it, but the hon. Gentleman asked


me whether I could promise legislation, and I regret that I cannot.

Mr. Leach: Can the Minister say to the nearest hundred how many matters are now under serious consideration?

WELSH ANTHRACITE COAL (CANADIAN IMPORTS).

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that the shipments of Welsh anthracite coal to the Dominion of Canada during the shipment season of 1936 showed a reduction of 113,217 tons as compared with 1935 and of 172,317 as compared with 1934; that during the same period the shipment of coal from Germany to the Dominion increased from 31,000 tons in 1934 to 266,913 tons in 1936; and, in view of the fear that next year there will be a further serious reduction of shipments in consequence of the agreement between the Governments of the Dominion of Canada and of Russia to permit of the importation of 250,000 tons of Russian anthracite coal to Canada, what steps he proposes to take to protect the Welsh anthracite coal trade, which depends for regular working during the summer months on the trade with Canada, and to protect the livelihood of thousands of Welsh anthracite coal miners?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Dr. Burgin): I have been asked to reply. My hon. and gallant Friend is aware of the position to which the hon. Member calls attention, and recognises its effect upon the Welsh anthracite trade. As regards the second part of the question, he would refer the hon. Member to the full statement which he made on 12th November in reply to a question by the hon. Member for East Cardiff (Mr. T. Morris). The Government are continuing their efforts to safeguard the position so far as possible.

Mr. Griffiths: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the policy of the Government of the Dominion of Canada is a breach of the much-boosted Ottawa Agreement, and has his attention and that of the Department been called to the importation into Canada of coal from Germany, Indo-China and Belgium, which is arranged because of the greater profit made by the importers; will he also call attention to the fact

that they are supporting other industries and letting their own workmen down?

Dr. Burgin: I will refer all these matters to my hon. and gallant Friend, but they are different from anything that the hon. Gentleman is asking in his question.

ROAD IMPROVEMENTS (WALSALL-BIRMINGHAM).

Mr. Leckie: asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the congested state of that thoroughfare, he will hasten on the negotiations with the various local authorities for the widening of the main road between Walsall and Birmingham via Perry Barr; and when does he expect it will be completed?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Captain Austin Hudson): The road in question is under three different authorities. As regards the section within the area of the Walsall County Borough Council, my right hon. Friend has already made a grant, and the work will shortly begin. With regard to the section in the county of Stafford, a scheme for, reconstruction and widening has been approved in principle, and a compulsory purchase order for the land required has been confirmed. As regards the section in the area of the Birmingham County Borough Council, as soon as the proposed layout has been decided an application for a grant will be entertained.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

NEW STAMPS.

Mr. Mander: asked the Postmaster-General whether, before new stamps are issued in the present reign, the advice of the Royal Fine Art Commission will be taken?

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Sir Walter Womersley): I will bear this suggestion in mind, but the hon. Member will doubtless appreciate that if new stamps are to be issued by the Coronation, there is very little time available.

Mr. MacLaren: That is a good thing.

Mr. Maxton: Would it not be appropriate that the design of our stamps and coinage should not have the picture of a person as their central idea?

Mr. Mander: Would it take the Royal Fine Art Commission very long to look at any proposals that were brought forward?

Mr. MacLaren: When they were looking at them, would they know what they were looking at?

Mr. Crossley: Can we not have a really great artist to do the design for the new stamps?

Sir W. Womersley: The difficulty is to find an artist of whom the other artists approve.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that exactly the same reply was given before the House rose for the Christmas Recess, and, as time is the essence of the matter, why is there so much delay?

Mr. Macquisten: Is he aware that art is long and life is short?

Sir W. Womersley: We have recently consulted the Fine Art Commission on the general question of stamp design.

CHRISTMAS DELIVERIES.

Mr. Viant: asked the Postmaster-General whether he will give the reasons why postal packets posted in Wembley on 23rd December were not delivered in Willesden, a distance of two miles, until 29th December?

Sir W. Womersley: I regret that, without the covers of the packets, I can offer no explanation of the delay. I have made full inquiry, and I find that the Wembley office made a clear despatch of "in time" postings on 23rd December and the Willesden office made a clear delivery on Christmas Day. If the hon. Member will let me have the covers, I shall be glad to have further inquiry made.

Mr. Viant: Is there not a general complaint throughout the country, and is it not due to an insufficient number of extra employés having been engaged for this purpose?

Sir W. Womersley: It is not a fact that there is a general complaint. There are a few isolated cases. It is a fact that in some districts we were not able to get as many extra men as we desired, while in other districts we could have had more than we desired. We had to make the best of the position as we found it.

Mr. Viant: Has the Department kept a record of the complaints that have been made throughout the country?

Sir W. Womersley: We keep a record of complaints, but I can assure my hon. Friend that it is not a large mailbag.

COTTON PIECE GOODS (IMPORTS, SUDAN).

Sir W. Smiles: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether there is any difference in the amount of import duty on cotton piece goods from Lancashire imported into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and into Egypt; and whether he has any information as to the reasons for the disappointing Lancashire trade to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan as compared with Egypt?

Captain Euan Wallace (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The duties levied in Egypt and the Sudan are not on a comparable basis, but the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1899 provides that the import duties on United Kingdom goods must not be higher in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan than in Egypt. The trade statistics show that the bulk of the cotton piece goods imported into the Sudan is of Japanese origin.

Sir W. Smiles: Have any steps been taken to improve the export of cotton goods from Lancashire into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan?

Captain Wallace: The whole question is surrounded by many complications which it would be difficult to discuss at the moment, but I should be very glad to talk to my hon. Friend about it.

AERODROMES (BUILDING ENCROACHMENTS).

Mr. Simmonds: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he has called the attention of local authorities to the importance of their preventing the erection of buildings in the immediate vicinity of aerodromes unless in accordance with the Air Navigation Act, 1936?

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Sir Philip Sassoon): I am not quite clear what my hon. Friend has in mind. I think local authorities and their advisers


are alive to their powers under the Act of last year and to the importance of using those powers, or the powers under the Town and Country Planning Act, to prevent building encroachments in the neighbourhood of aerodromes. The Air Ministry is always most ready to advise in regard to such a matter.

Mr. Simmonds: Is it not a fact that recently there have been very serious accidents involving many deaths, due to the presence of houses near the confines of aerodromes and is it not, therefore, most important that local authorities should prevent the erection of new houses where further accidents may be caused?

Sir P. Sassoon: The local authorities have power under the Air Navigation Act.

AIRCRAFT FACTORY (WHITE WALTHAM).

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that a site for the erection of an aircraft factory has been purchased at White Waltham, near Maidenhead; and whether he has any statement to make as to why a site was not chosen in the North-East, or some other Special Area, where there are many available sites suitable for this purpose?

Mr. David Adams: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether it has yet been finally decided to erect an aircraft factory at White Waltham, near Maidenhead; whether, in accordance with Government policy as to the location of such factories, there are firms carrying on manufactures of an allied nature on or near this site; and, if not, whether he has considered the suitability of utilising one of the numerous vacant factory sites available in the North-Eastern area?

Sir P. Sassoon: It has been definitely decided to erect an aircraft factory at White Waltham. Very careful consideration was given by my Noble Friend to the possibility of locating the factory in a Special Area and to the numerous factors involved, but it was found that the delays and disadvantages involved in any alternative site would have seriously prejudiced the prompt success of this enterprise, which is of great importance in the organisation of the Shadow Scheme.

Mr. Stewart: Is it the policy of the Department to build factories in areas such as White Waltham rather than in the Special Areas, where the percentage of unemployment is very high indeed?

Sir P. Sassoon: No, Sir, but this particular factory was erected under the Shadow Scheme, and therefore it is essential that it should be placed not only near the aerodrome, but that it should be in close proximity to the managing and parent firms, with easy main line communication.

Mr. Lawson: May I ask the Prime Minister whether there is anyone in the Government who takes note of the social condition of the country, other than the particular Department concerned? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the position of great masses of people in certain areas? How much longer is this to go on without notice being taken of it?

The Prime Minister: I must have notice of a question of that kind.

Mr. Lawson: Surely this is a matter for the Government as a whole, rather than for the Department, in view of the serious nature of this Special Areas question?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Member asks whether the Government are anxious for the provision of work in the Special Areas, the answer is most certainly that we are; but this particular question obviously has reference to matters which involve a great many technical considerations, and without notice I cannot be expected to give an answer.

Mr. Annesley Somerville: In view of the fact that this place is in my constituency, and the matter is of essential importance to the constituency, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that there is no labour available in the district, and that the workers, from 3,500 to 5,000 in number, whom it is proposed to employ, would have to be imported; and that it will completely change the character of a purely agricultural district?

Mr. Lawson: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer to this question, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

FOREIGN SERVICE.

Mr. Leckie: asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that the 2nd Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment returned to this country on 28th December after 17 years' continuous service abroad; what is the number of battalions now serving abroad which have been away for 10 years and upwards; and whether he will take steps, with a view to popularising the Army, to reduce the period of foreign service for individual battalions considerably?

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Sir Victor Warrender): Yes, Sir, I am aware that the facts are as stated. Thirty-one battalions have been serving abroad for 10 years or more. My hon. Friend will, however, appreciate the fact that during a protracted foreign tour the bulk of the battalion personnel is turned over several times, and the period spent abroad by the unit as such is no indication of the length of foreign service in the case of individual soldiers, the majority of whose total colour service does not extend beyond eight years as a maximum.

RECRUITING (ENGINEERING TRADESMEN).

Captain Plugge: asked the Secretary of State for War whether there has been a satisfactory number of applications for enlistment under the new scheme for obtaining engineering tradesmen as recruits for the Army?

Sir V. Warrender: The scheme did not come into operation until 31st December, and it is perhaps a little early to expect immediate results. The response so far, however, is not encouraging, and my right hon. Friend can only hope that the sympathetic attitude adopted by the employers and authorities concerned will have the desired effect.

Captain Plugge: Can my hon. Friend say from which part of the country these recruits are principally obtained?

SERVICE CONDITIONS.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for War when he expects to be able to make a statement concerning improved conditions of Army service, especially as regards increased pay, length of service abroad, and employment on return to civil life?

Mr. Sandys: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is in a position to give particulars of the improvements in the pay and conditions of service of the Army, which he has recently foreshadowed?

Sir V. Warrender: A final decision has not yet been reached, and my right hon. Friend is unable at present to give the date on which he will be in a position to make an announcement.

Mr. Thorne: Will the hon. Baronet consider giving what are called the rank and file of the Army a better chance of promotion?

PALESTINE RESERVISTS (EMPLOYMENT).

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for War how many of the reservists called up for service in Palestine have been reinstated in civilian employment?

Sir V. Warrender: Of approximately 2,100 reservists who have notified their employment situation, about 1,600 have secured employment.

Miss Ward: May I ask what the War Office propose to do about the others?

Sir V. Warrender: We are still pursuing every effort we can, in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour, to find these men employment, and we hope to succeed.

Miss Ward: In view of the fact that these men left their ordinary employment to go abroad in the interests of their country, and have returned, will my hon. Friend say quite severely to employers that they should consider it their duty to reinstate these men? Is my hon. Friend aware that a great many people think it is intolerable that these men should be left without employment?

Mr. Speaker: There seem to be too many epithets in the hon. Lady's supplementary question.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. Baronet aware that it is reported that, in some cases in which reservists are making application for their previous employment, they have been offered lower wages?

Sir J. Nall: Would my hon. Friend collect and publish the names of the firms?

Sir V. Warrender: I am aware of the very natural apprehension which hon. Members have in all parts of the House, and which we have at the War Office,


about the position of these men, but it must be remembered that all these reservists were not in employment when they were called up. Some 500 of them were out of work. When I gave the figures to the House on the last occasion, on the 17th December, the position then was that there were 760 of these men still unemployed. Since that date we have reduced the figure to 500 and, though the position is still unsatisfactory from our point of view, at any rate the position of these men, taken by and large, is no worse than it was when they were called up.

Mr. Macquisten: Is it the same 500 who are now unemployed?

GERMANY AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government are aware of the campaign of anti-Czechoslovak propaganda being carried on in the German Press; and whether he will make a statement?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Viscount Cranborne): His Majesty's Government have not failed to observe that a number of articles have recently appeared in German newspapers containing attacks on Czechoslovakia. The maintenance of good neighbourly relations between the two countries is naturally the desire of His Majesty's Government, and I am glad to have this opportunity of making this clear.

Mr. Henderson: Will the Noble Lord send a copy of that answer to Dr. Goebbels?

Viscount Cranborne: I think my reply will come to his notice in any case.

Mr. Gallacher: If aggression actually takes place against Czechoslovakia, shall we get the usual formula about isolating the conflict?

NAVAL AIRCRAFT.

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the approximate number of aircraft now under the control of the British, Japanese, American and Italian navies, respectively?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Lord Stanley): I should be obliged if the hon. and gallant Member would repeat the question next week.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

Mr. Parker: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the total cost of Dartmouth College during the current year; the number of cadets borne; the total number of staff; the cost per cadet; the various scales of fees charged to the parents and guardians; the bursaries granted; and the numbers now being educated there under the various scales?

Lord Stanley: The total estimated cost of Dartmouth College for the current financial year is £99,850. The average number of cadets was 426, and the number at present is 440. The total number of staff is 309. The gross cost per cadet a year is about £260, and the net cost, that is, after allowing for the average fee paid by parents, is £137. This assessment of cost allows, not only for cash expenditure in Navy Estimates, but also for expenditure falling on Civil Estimates* and for the accruing non-effective liability of the staff of the college. The standard fee charged to parents or guardians is £150 a year, but reduced rates, details of which I am sending to the hon. Member, are allowed to the parents or guardians of 120 cadets. In addition, four cadets hold King's cadetships, for which no fees are payable, and I assume that the term "bursary" used by the hon. Member refers to these cadetships.

ENTRIES AND PROMOTIONS.

Mr. Parker: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of cadets entered at Dartmouth College and through the public-school scheme for the executive, engineering, and paymaster branches, and the number of Royal Marine officer entries in 1936; and also the number of ratings commissioned from the lower deck, under the sub-lieutenant and similar early promotion schemes, in these branches last year?

Lord Stanley: With the exception of the paymaster branch, the information
* e.g., rates, stationery, etc.


requested is in the reply given to the hon. Member on 25th November. The number of paymaster cadets entered by examination in 1936 was 27. There is no scheme for promotion to commissioned rank from the lower deck in the accountant branch other than through warrant rank.

LOWER DECK PROMOTIONS.

Mr. Parker: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of lower-deck candidates in each branch who are now qualified educationally and professionally for sub-lieutenant, sub-lieutenant (E), and second-lieutenant Royal Marines; and the reasons why the numbers recently promoted have been the lowest in the 24 years of lower-deck promotion, observing that the number of direct-entry officers in the three branches have been greatly increased during the last few years?

Lord Stanley: The number of lower deck candidates who have qualified by examination for promotion to

Sub-Lieutenant is 69 (excluding the most recent examination, the results of which are not yet available).
Sub-Lieutenant (E)—31.
Second-Lieutenant, R.M.—3.
The Admiralty have no knowledge how many of these are at present professionally qualified.
With regard to the latter part of the question, I would point out that the candidates for promotion. to the rank of acting sub-lieutenant during the last three years have been drawn from among the men who entered the Service during the years 1929–1931. During those years, the numbers of entries to the lower deck were at their lowest, and in each of those years the entries into the seaman branch were approximately only 30 per cent. of the number entered for that branch last year. Since 1931 the number of entries has considerably increased, and I hope that this increase in lower deck numbers will be reflected in the promotions from the lower deck in the future.

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS.

Mr. De Chair: asked the Home Secretary whether any precautions have

been taken to protect the civilian population from burns to exposed parts of the skin resulting from mustard gas bombs?

Mr. Lloyd: Members of the public will be advised to remain indoors in a room which has been protected against gas and they should not, therefore, normally be exposed to burns from vesicant gases. If any should be so burned, the network of first aid posts proposed in time of war in urban areas would enable speedy treatment to be given.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Has the Department taken any steps to set up factories for making air raid protective clothing for civilians?

Mr. Lloyd: Protective clothing against blistering gases is being supplied by the Government to the air raid precautionary services of local authorities.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.

MEN OF THE FLEET (WELFARE).

Lieut.-Commander Tufnell: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates, I shall call attention to the welfare of the men of the Fleet, and move a Resolution.

VOLUNTARY STERILISATION.

Wing-Commander James: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Estimates, I shall o call attention to the need for implementing the report of the Brock Committee on voluntary sterilisation, and move a Resolution.

ARMY RECRUITMENT AND CONDITIONS.

Mr. Mabane: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, I shall call attention to recruitment and conditions of service in the Army, and move a Resolution.

AERIAL WARFARE.

Mr. Mathers: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Air Estimates, I shall call attention to the need for the abolition of aerial warfare and the international control of civil aviation, and move a Resolution.

CIVIL AVIATION.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply


on the Air Estimates, I shall call attention to the need for the international control of civil aviation and the conditions and wages paid by manufacturers of aircraft supplied to the Air Ministry, and move a Resolution.

NUTRITION.

Mr. Rowson: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Estimates, I shall call attention to the question of nutrition, and move a Resolution.

LOWER DECK CONDITIONS.

Mr. Charleton: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Naval Estimates, I shall call attention to conditions of the lower deck, and move a Resolution.

STATUTE LAW REVISION COMMITTEE.

Sir Arnold Wilson: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Civil Estimates, I shall call attention to the work of the Statute Law Revision Committee, and move a Resolution.

TERRITORIAL ARMY.

Mr. Levy: I beg to give notice that, on going into Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, I shall call attention to the Territorial Army, and move a Resolution.

BILL PRESENTED.

MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL,

"to make further provision as to the submergence of load lines and as to the life-saving appliances of fishing boats," presented by Mr. Runciman; supported by Dr. Burgin; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 59.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Attlee: Will the Prime Minister state the business for next week, and will he also tell us for what purpose he is moving the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule to-night?

The Prime Minister: The suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule is precautionary. We desire to obtain the Second Reading of the Livestock Industry Bill

and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, and afterwards we propose to take the Second Reading of the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Bill, which is exempted business. The Business for next week is as follows:
Monday: Second Reading of the Empire Settlement Bill; Committee stage of the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Bill; and Second Reading of the Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Amendment Bill.
Tuesday: Discussion of the Motion of Censure standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Leader of the Opposition with regard to dismissals from the Royal Dockyards; and further consideration of the Beef and Veal Customs Duties Bill.
Wednesday: Private Members' Motions.
Thursday: Second Reading of the Maternity Services (Scotland) Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, and, if there is time, Second Reading of the Harbours, Piers and Ferries (Scotland) Bill.
Friday: Private Members' Bills.
On any day, as opportunity offers, other business will be taken, including the Public Works Loans Bill, consideration of the East India Loans Money Resolution, India and Burma (Existing Laws) Bill [Lords], and consideration of Money Resolutions for the Chairmen of Traffic Commissioners and Statutory Salaries.

Mr. Thorne: Has the Home Secretary made any report to the Cabinet about the Factories Bill?

The Prime Minister: I regret to say that Cabinet discussions are supposed to be secret.

Mr. Mabane: How long is it proposed to give to the Empire Settlement Bill on Monday? Will it be a whole day?

The Prime Minister: Yes, if necessary.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 221; Noes, 109.

Division No. 48.]
AYES.
[3.48 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Nall, Sir J.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Furness, S. N.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Ganzoni, Sir J.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Palmer, G. E. H.


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Gluckstein, L. H.
Peake, O


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Peat, C. U.


Assheton, R.
Goldie, N. B.
Peters, Dr. S. J.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Petherick, M.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.


Balniel, Lord
Grigg, Sir E. W. M.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.


Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.
Grimston, R. V.
Radford, E. A.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Guy, J. C. M.
Raikes, H. V. A. M.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Hamilton, Sir G. C.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.


Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)
Hanbury, Sir C.
Ramsbotham, H.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Hannah, I. C.
Ramsden, Sir E.


Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Blair, Sir R.
Harbord, A.
Rayner, Major R. H.


Blindell, Sir J.
Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Boulton, W. W.
Heilgers, Captain F. F A.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Brass, Sir W.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Holmes, J. S.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Salmon, Sir I.


Bull, B. B.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)


Bullock, Capt. M.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)


Burghley, Lord
Hunter, T.
Sandys, E. D.


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Hurd, Sir P. A.
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.


Butler, R. A.
Jackson, Sir H.
Savery, Servington


Campbell, Sir E. T.
James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Scott, Lord William


Cartland, J. R. H.
Keeling, E. H.
Shakespeare, G. H.


Cary, R. A.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Castlereagh, Viscount
Kimball, L.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Simmonds, O. E.


Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Leckie, J. A.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st)


Channon, H.
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W D.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.
Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Levy, T.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Christie, J. A.
Lewis, O.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)
Liddall, W. S.
Southby, Commander A. R J.


Clarry, Sir Reginald
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.


Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)
Lloyd, G. W.
Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.


Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.
Looker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk N.)
Loftus, P. C.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)


Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S. G'gs)
Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)


Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Lyons, A. M.
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)


Craddock, Sir R. H.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Cranborne, Viscount
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Critchley, A
M'Connell, Sir J.
Sutcliffe, H.


Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Scot. U.)
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Crooke, J. S.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Titchfield, Marquess of


Crossley, A. C.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.
Touche, G. C.


Crowder, J. F. E.
McKie, J. H.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Davison, Sir W. H.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.
Turton, R. H.


De Chair, S. S.
Macquisten, F. A.
Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Magnay, T.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Doland, G. F.
Maitland, A.
Warrender, Sir V.


Donner, P. W.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Wells, S. R.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Markham, S. F.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Dugdale, Major T. L.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Duggan, H. J.
Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Duncan, J. A. L.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Ellis, Sir G.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Elmley, Viscount
Moreing, A. C.
Wright, Squadron-Leader J. A. C.


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Morgan, R. H.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)



Entwistle, C. F.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward


Everard, W. L.
Munro, P.
and Major Sir George Davies.




NOES.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Bromfield, W.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Banfield, J. W.
Brown, C. (Mansfield)


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Barnes, A. J.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)


Adamson, W. M.
Bellenger, F. J.
Burke, W. A.







Charleton, H. C.
John, W.
Pritt, D. N.


Chater, D.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Quibell, D. J. K.


Cluse, W. S.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Bishards, R. (Wrexham)


Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Kelly, W. T.
Ritson, J.


Dalton, H.
Kirby, B. V.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Lathan, G.
Rothschild, J. A. de


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lawson, J. J.
Rowson, G.


Day, H.
Leach, W.
Sanders, W. S.


Dobbie, W.
Lee, F.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Ede, J. C.
Leonard, W.
Sexton, T. M.


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Logan, D. G.
Shinwell, E.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Lunn, W.
Short, A.


Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)
Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Silverman, S. S.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
McGhee, H. G.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Frankel, D.
MacLaren, A.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Gallacher, W.
Maclean, N.
Sorensen, R. W.


Gardner, B. W.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)




Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Mander, G. le M.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Marshall, F.
Thorne, W.


Grenfell, D. R.
Maxton, J.
Thurtle, E.


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Messer, F.
Tinker, J. J.


Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Montague, F.
Viant, S. P.


Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Watkins, F. C.


Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Muff, G.
Watson, W. McL.


Hardie, G. D.
Naylor, T. E.
Westwood, J.


Harris, Sir P. A.
Noel-Baker, P. J.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Oliver, G. H.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Paling, W.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Parker, J.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Hicks, E. G.
Parkinson, J. A.



Hopkin, D.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Jagger, J.
Potts, J.
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.

SHEEP STOCKS VALUATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Reported, with Amendments, from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Friday, 9th April, and to be printed. [Bill 60.]

Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

Orders of the Day — LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY BILL.

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [20th January], "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Which Amendment was, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
this House welcomes legislation for better marketing and central slaughtering of livestock, but regrets the absence of any provisions for ascertaining the cost of production of fat cattle, and cannot assent to measures calculated to swell private profits at the public expense."—[Mr. T. Williams.]

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Turton: When the Debate was adjourned last night I was discussing the Socialist Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, and the reasons adduced in support of the Amendment. Let me sum up the matter in this way: So far as the Amendment welcomed the slaughtering proposals of the Bill the welcome was faint, partial and contradictory. In the other part of their Amendment, attacking the subsidy to the livestock industry, the Socialists betrayed their ignorance of the conditions in the livestock industry, both by the terms of their Amendment and by their speeches, with the one exception of the speech of the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin). I wonder whether the position of the livestock industry is sufficiently well known at the present time. I notice that the night before last the Chancellor of the Exchequer was entertained by the farmers of the country and, no doubt mellowed by their hospitality, and taking the measure of their hospitality as the measure of their income, he said that farmers were substantially better off now than they had been. That may be true of the producer of hops; it may be true of the producer of tomatoes; it may be true, though not substantially, of the producer of milk. But it is quite untrue of the producer of livestock, and as livestock represent 70 per cent. of the produce from farms I am afraid that the Chancellor must revise his opinion as to the prosperity of this branch of the industry.
The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was at pains to discover where the subsidy under the emergency provisions had gone to. I think that that is a perfectly fair inquiry. Since September, 1934, we have been paying out of public funds money towards this branch of the industry, and we complain now that the industry is in no better condition than it was. Let me give some figures. The Ministry of Agriculture price for second quality beef in September, 1934, the beginning of the emergency period, was 34s. To-day, according to the last figures, the price for second quality beef is 31s. 3d. Let me take the two chief feeding stuffs. Bran has risen from £5 2s. a ton to £6 17s. a ton, and cotton cake has gone up from £4 5s. to £5 7s. The finished product, as we know, has decreased in price, while at the same time the cost of feeding stuffs has risen. Who has gained? One fact that the Socialists seem to forget is that the price of beef has gone down during that period. If they will consult the Labour Gazette they will find that when the emergency legislation was instituted the price of ribs was 1s. 2d. and the price of flank was 7¼d., and to-day the respective prices are 1s. 1½d. and 7d. Those who like to make calculations can work out what has been the saving to the consumers of this country. They will find that it comes to round about £4,000,000 a year, which is the exact amount of the subsidy that we have given. But, be that as it may, the fact remains that the livestock industry is in such a parlous condition that farmers are leaving the growing of fat stock or store stock for other branches, and that some part of the large exodus of agricultural workers from the land is due to the poor prices of fat stock in the markets of this country.
That being the condition, here is the Government's Bill. The Socialists complain that the Government have not written into the Bill what is the cost of production of beef. Their own speeches have supplied the statement that the price of beef is 40s. from grass and 50s. stall fed. I am not prepared to quarrel with those figures. I understand that the National Farmers' Union of England made certain inquiries and that the result was a figure of 48s. per cwt. Any of those prices shows that there is a gap, as the hon. Baronet the Member for Maldon (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise) described it, of


some 14s., a gap which the 5s. subsidy is quite insufficient to fill. Is it going to be filled by this Bill? The Under-Secretary for Scotland in winding up the Debate last night for the Government said:
I shall not attempt to convince him that the financial provisions of the Bill will be adequate to secure the object which he has in view."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 309, Vol. 319.]
The Under-Secretary was replying to the hon. Member for Kincardine and Western (Sir M. Barclay-Harvey) and was referring to the closing of the gap. In that sense the Bill stands condemned by one of its chief spokesmen. I must say from my knowledge of the Bill that I do not think the Under-Secretary for Scotland was very wrong when he used those phrases. Let us consider the three methods of help for beef as contained in the Bill, and the Government's policy. There is first of all the duty of ¿d. a lb. I think it is generally admitted that the exporters of beef in the Argentine will pay that duty. [Laughter.] An hon. Member opposite laughs. I made that statement in deference to the Socialist party's own speakers.

Mr. George Griffiths: The miners will pay that ¿d.

Mr. Turton: The Socialist party's own speakers have made the point that I have made. Men who, so far as I know, are members of the Socialist party have got up in their places and admitted that the Argentine exporters will bear that duty. The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley), who is still a Socialist, I believe, went so far as to say that whether it came from the Argentine exporter or from the consumer he did not mind, but he would much rather it came from the taxpayer. I should have thought that this House, composed of taxpayers and supporters of the British Government, would far prefer that the Argentine exporter should pay for the privilege of coming into this market, and I cannot understand the unpatriotic attitude of the hon. Member for Dewsbury.
But let us pass from the duty to the regulation of imports. Before I go into the details I want Members of the House to have one picture in their minds. In the years before the War, 53 per cent. of the beef we consumed came from home sources and 47 per cent. was

imported. After the War the position was entirely changed; the home supply was 48 per cent. and the imports were 52 per cent. Any Measure that is designed to put the livestock producer on his feet must alter that position and alter it radically. The position from the years immediately before the War to the present time has deteriorated, for each year more meat has been sent in. Last year the imports of beef were nearly 1,000,000 cwt. more than the imports in 1932. In view of that position the Minister said yesterday that that part of the Bill which deals with the regulation of imports was in his view the stable foundation of his policy. The Minister will remember the parable in the Bible of the man who built his house upon sand, and the result to the house. I am afraid that this stable foundation to which the Minister referred is shifting sand. He takes power to regulate imports, but already, before he has taken that power, the President of the Board of Trade has concluded an Agreement with the Argentine under which the British Government agrees that for the next three years it will not regulate imports more than 2 per cent.
Therefore Part III of the Bill must be subject to that Argentine Agreement. Not only is it subject to that Argentine Agreement, but it is the policy of the Government that this part of the Bill shall not be brought into operation until the International Meat Conference,. which we attend only as one producer among many in fixing the quantity to be sent into this great country, has failed to come to a decision. In the Argentine Agreement it is made equally clear that the International Meat Conference cannot alter the guarantee of no limitation beyond 2 per cent., given by the President of the Board of Trade to the Argentine Government under that Agreement. If that be the stable foundation, what a structure for the Minister to build upon! To go back to 1932 would mean a reduction in imports of 6½ per cent. The Argentine will have, only 2 per cent. cut from it in the first year. What will the Empire say? Is it possible that the Empire, when that Agreement so favourable to the Argentine has been concluded, will decrease their imports to this country by more than 2 per cent.? No; what hope we have from this Bill must come,


I regret to say, from the subsidy, and the subsidy is limited to £5,000,000, which is 25 per cent. more than was previously enjoyed. That amount is not sufficient to close the gap. In other words the subsidy cannot make the fat stock industry profitable at the present time.
I am not going to waste time in reiterating disappointment, because I do not think that that serves a useful purpose in the House; but I do think that the House should consider how we can best use that very limited amount of £5,000,000 to improve this very distressed industry. What has been the reason for the distress in the industry? Primarily, the large increase in imports from overseas and the poor quality of the beef that is being put upon the markets of this country. I want the Minister to pay special attention to that. The emergency provisions have, unfortunately, assisted the deterioration of the quality of beef, because there has been a flat rate subsidy and, being a flat rate subsidy, it is quite easy to understand that five shillings to a man who is thinking of getting 30s. for inferior quality beef is a far greater inducement than 5s. to a man who is producing high quality beef at something like 48s. a cwt.

Mr. G. Griffiths: If the hon. Member does not believe in the flat rate now, why did he vote for a flat rate in the means test?

Mr. Turton: I am afraid that I cannot go into the means test now, although I should be glad to discuss either that question or the question of margarine with the hon. Member at some other time. I am dealing with an intricate question, the question of a flat rate subsidy. Farmers have been putting their cattle on the market in an unfinished condition because the subsidy and the price do not enable them to go into the extra expenditure of finishing their cattle off. The Minister will no doubt say, "I have done that. I said in my speech that we are going to have a quality subsidy." I am afraid, however, that that is not sufficient consolation to me until I know what that quality subsidy is to be. You have to make the quality subsidy sufficiently high to encourage people to give this high quality in beef.
Figures have been mentioned by the newspapers which show only a difference

of 2s. 6d. per cwt. Let me tell the Minister that a difference of 2s. 6d. a cwt. will not be sufficient to improve the quality of stock on the markets. Here I differ with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Malden (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise). He said that he wanted the subsidy spread as wide as possible, but I am afraid if we do that we shall get no improvement in quality. It is most important that what beef we have should be of the highest quality. One cause of deterioration in quality has been the influx of the fat stock farmer into the milk industry. The system of the dairying industry requires that there should be a number of casualties every year. The old cows go to the market and are sold at 18s. to 19s. a cwt. When these old cows have been sold to the butcher and killed a great many of them are put on the counter as prime beef, and the consumer when he has to invest in a new set of teeth says: "Look at your English beef." Surely, we could do something to remedy that state of affairs. Cannot we by this Bill make some provision for canning that cow beef? I can find no provision for that in the Bill. If we cannot do that, cannot we make it obligatory on the seller of cow beef which has not received a subsidy to state that it is cow beef and not prime beef? I believe that that would do something to remedy the situation.
The cow beef situation has been made even worse by what is known as the flying stock system. That is, dairy farmers keep their cows for a very short period. They buy and sell and keep their cows for one, two or three lactations. These cows got rid of, which are still cow heifers, are receiving at the present time as great a subsidy as the highly produced, highly finished, good pedigree beef cattle. That is wrong. If we are going to retain the subsidy for cow heifers it must not only be at a lower rate than the quality subsidy, but also at a lower rate than the flat rate subsidy. We must have a specially low subsidy for cow heifers because the producer of the cow heifer is receiving the advantage of a higher price. Further, it is most important to note, that the fiat rate subsidy has done nothing to help the store raiser of this country. When I go round the store-raising farms of the North Riding I find outside each farm, that used to be store


raising, milk cans which are going to the milk factory to be made into that manufactured milk which brings in 5d. a gallon. That is wrong. That milk should be put into the young cattle and calves of this country, and it is not being so used.
I asked the Minister on Tuesday what had been happening to the calves in Great Britain, and I find that last year more than 100,000 more calves were slaughtered than in the previous year. That means that our store cattle have deteriorated in quantity as well as in quality. Those hon. Members who are practical farmers will find that the price of stores has kept up during the last few months, but the quality and quantity of stores has been very disappointing. As Minister of Agriculture my right hon. Friend must take urgent and drastic steps to remedy the store situation. One step that we ought to take in this Bill is to ensure that no quality subsidy is received by any animal that has not been bred in this country. I do not think that at the moment we can deny all the subsidy to Irish-bred cattle but we should deny them the quality subsidy. These are my suggestions on the question of subsidy and I regard them as being of tremendous importance.
I regret that those parts of the Bill which deal with the subsidy are not to be settled by the House in Committee but are to be left to the Livestock Commission and the advice that they give to the Minister. When the Minister has got in official form the subsidy regulations the House ought to have power to say aye or no to them, but there is no provision for the subsidy regulations being passed by the House. They are to be laid on the Table for information. They might as well be laid in the Library. It does not give us any advantage in procedure in the House to lay a particular regulation on the Table. I ask that at a later stage we shall insert provisions for passing the regulations and if necessary giving the House power to amend them.
Let me say a few words on marketing. I have every desire to see the markets of this country made more efficient than they are. I regret that in some cases they are not efficient, but I do ask the Minister to bear in mind the

difference there is between markets in level country, where the farmers are accustomed to long distances and to taking their cattle long distances, and those markets in the hilly districts where the market is usually situated at the end of the dale and the farmers of the dale are not accustomed to go further than the little market town with their produce. It would be a grave injustice to take away these little markets that are serving the dale country of Yorkshire and the hill country of England as a whole. I would ask the Minister to bear that in mind.
I have criticised the Bill and I have not been happy in doing so. We have a new Minister who, like his predecessor, has a considerable knowledge of agriculture and great goodwill towards the agricultural industry. I wish him every success and I hope that we shall be able to improve the Bill as time goes on. But I am afraid that in the conflict that has taken place, no doubt behind the scenes, over the levy, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has won, over the regulations the Board of Trade has won, and I think also over the subsidy the Chancellor of the Exchequer has tightened the purse-strings to make it insufficient. As a result of that conflict of interest, damage is being done to the backbone of the agricultural industry, to the men who have bred in this country the best pedigree stock in the world, pedigree cattle that are still the envy of all foreign countries, and damage is being done to the stock farmers and the stock men, who work longer hours than anybody, who have no rest from their constant care of the animals in their charge. It is to give these men a squarer deal and to give them better wages that I ask the House to consider the Bill and to improve it. We can do something to improve the Bill in Committee. However much we criticise it, I think we shall all admit that it is an improvement on the emergency regulations of the last 2½ years. For these reasons, while I shall vote for the Second Reading, I shall make every endeavour to try to improve the Bill at a later stage.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. R. Acland: Like most of the speakers in this Debate so far, I welcome this Bill with rather faint enthusiasm and in the hope that the Minister and the


House will realise that it is not a small thing for Members of our party to welcome a Bill which contains a subsidy. I do so myself because I have been convinced by my constituents that without this provision there would be a failure in the livestock industry, and I hope that as we are doing something which is somewhat unusual for our party in approving the Second Reading of a Bill with a subsidy in it, our criticisms and suggestions on other points will receive the more consideration. We welcome this Bill rather faintly for opposite reasons to those which have contributed to the lukewarmness on the opposite side of the House, where Members seem to fear that the subsidy is far too small, that it will not be sufficiently permanent, and that the interference with methods of distribution and slaughtering is far too onerous. We take the very contrary view. We fear that the subsidy may be far too permanent, and we doubt whether the measures of this Bill dealing with the improvement of marketing and of slaughtering are sufficiently forceful.
I would like to say something in general about the speeches which we have heard from the other side of the House, from which I would like to exclude the speech, to which we have just listened, of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Tinton), which seemed to be of a different nature. Many of the speeches which we have heard have made we wonder how it was that hon. Members opposite agreed to a Resolution on the livestock industry in which this House unanimously hoped the Government's policy would be based upon the improvement of the quality of the products of the industry, the reduction of costs of production and distribution, and the stimulation of demand. It seemed to me remarkable that, some hon. Members having agreed to that Resolution, should have condemned almost everything which the Government are attempting to do in order to carry out what was so recently the hope of the entire House, and that they should apparently, from their speeches, desire that the livestock industry in future should be based solidly upon financial assistance. I really wonder what plans many hon. Members opposite have of their own which they would like to see carried out in order to put the industry on to some other permanent basis if they are not thinking of financial assistance as the

be-all and end-all of the Government's agricultural policy.
I would like to refer to a point in the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte), who yesterday complained so much of the Government and who said:
If there is a rise in the price of meat it will not be due to the Government's policy, and the Government will not be able to claim that it is their policy that has put the farmer on his feet again."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 297, Vol. 319.]
I quote that language to suggest to the hon. and gallant Member that that remark has been taken down and will at the proper time be used in evidence against him, and I hope that if, when the next election comes along, it should turn out that he is wrong and that the price of meat has risen, he and his fellow prospective candidates on the Government side will refrain from saying that it is their policy which has put the farmer on his feet again. But perhaps that is rather a pious hope.
I want to put a rather serious question, and I do not ask it rhetorically, but in order to obtain information. It is rather a big question. Does anybody really know why the livestock industry is doing so badly? The first answer that comes to one's mind, of course, is foreign importation, but a very little examination will prove that that answer will not work, because if we take the importation of beef in 1929 as 100, the importation in subsequent years has been 101 104, 96, 95, 100, 98, and last year 101. But when we turn to mutton, the figures are different. Taking the mutton importation of 1929 as 100, you get these figures for subsequent years: 112, 126, 124, 120, 116, 121, and last year 109, a very much more substantial increase in the importation of mutton than in that of beef, and yet mutton in this country is doing quite well. Therefore, importation alone is not the answer.
There is a rather curious phenomenon in the livestock industry to-day which I am not able to understand, although I did get some enlightenment from some remarks made by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, and that is this sudden increase in slaughtering which has taken place. From 1929 to 1933 the annual slaughterings were: 2,900,000, 2,900,000, 2,700,000, 2,600,000, and


2,600,000, which is just about steady, but from 1933 onward you get 2,600,000, 2,800,000, 3,100,000, and 3,200,000; in other words, in recent years there has been a very substantial increase in slaughterings. In the last three years we have slaughtered 1,300,000 more beasts than if we had continued at the rate of 1933. Where have these beasts come from? The industry is not expanding. It is not the increasing output of an increasing industry, and you would have thought that with this increase of slaughtering there would be a considerable decrease in the number of beasts living on the land. Yet, although we killed 1,300,000 extra, the decrease has only been 93,000. I do not know what the answer to that question is, and I would be very much interested in any answer that could be given.
One of the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture to whom I put the question suggested that the answer would be found in the importation of stores. Incidentally, I would like to mention the extraordinary courtesy which we private Members of the Opposition parties always receive from officials of the Ministry of Agriculture whenever we go and bother them with the object, as they must know, of picking holes in their schemes. I do not believe that the Minister of Agriculture himself gets more kindliness and service from his officials than we do. But the stores do not really account for the phenomenon which I have mentioned, because since 1932 the importation of stores has gone up by 62,000 a year and slaughtering has gone up by 664,000 a year. That is a problem that I do not know how to answer.
Another possible explanation of the collapse of the livestock industry is the change in the public taste. Some 18 months ago I would have thought that that was a very substantial part of the answer, because I had some figures from the Cattle and Beef Survey conducted by the Intelligence branch of the Imperial Economic Committee, in which they showed that comparing 1927 with 1933, consumption of beef per head had gone down from 71 to 63 lbs., or 11 per cent., but that mutton had increased from 26 to 33, an increase of 26 per cent., and that pigs had risen from 39 to 47 lbs. per head, or an increase of 20 per cent. The figures stop short at 1933. I recently

asked the Minister if he could bring the figures up to date for me. He gave me some which overlapped in one year the figures that I had, and in that year did not agree with mine, not only in amount, but in tendency. The figures that I received for the last two years showed that the consumption of beef is increasing again and the consumption of mutton and pigs is going down, so that I fear that the change in the taste of the people is again not the whole answer.
Now I want to call attention to some figures which are rather more ominous. Are we paying sufficient attention to the way in which foreign prices for beef are overtaking British prices for beef? All prices for beef are falling and have been for the last 10 years, but the prices for British beef are falling very much faster than the prices for Argentine, Australian and other Dominion beef. I will give one example, because it is the most startling. Comparing 1926 with 1936, in 1926 English longside seconds were 8¿d. per lb. and Argentine chilled hindquarters firsts were 6¿d. The British article fetched 30 per cent. higher price than the Argentine article. This year English longside seconds were 5¼d. and Argentine chilled hindquarters firsts 6¼d. In other words, to-day, instead of the British article fetching 30 per cent. more than the Argentine article, the Argentine article fetches 12 per cent. more than the British. What is the answer to that? Is there any other answer that can be given than one which is in some way dealing with quality; and if that is so, is not this question of quality a question of the very utmost urgency?
I appreciate that if the question of quality is a matter of the utmost urgency, a great deal of the solution of the difficulty must rest in the hands of the farmers. Are the farmers satisfied that they are doing enough now, that they are taking sufficiently drastic action to improve quality? I suggest that the Government might do two things to help. I think I am in agreement with what the last speaker said about distribution of the subsidy as between good quality and poor quality beef. I would acid that in the first year there should perhaps not be too much difference between the subsidy paid to the good quality and that paid to the poor quality beef, or else the producer of the poor quality will be driven out of production before he has a chance to improve his quality; but let it be known


from the first that, as time goes on, in two, three, four, or five years, the subsidy payments for the good quality beef wilt be substantially increased and the subsidy payments for the poor quality beef will be substantially decreased. I agree that in the interests of the future of the livestock industry we must now keep the producer of the poor quality beef out of the bankruptcy court, which he might go into next month if we did nothing for him, but I cannot agree, and I am sure my party could not agree, that we should keep the producer of poor quality beef out of the bankruptcy court for ever.
The only other question on policy that I want to touch upon is in connection with the slaughterhouses, because it seems to me that public slaughterhouses are closely bound up with quality. It is only by the improvement of slaughterhouses that we can process our meat so as to put it right ahead of the quality of the best Argentine. Therefore, I hope that these experiments in slaughterhouses will be made effectively and strenuously. I shall regard it as a tragedy if these experiments are allowed to become tangled up with private profit. I am aware that the commission, and through them the Ministry, will have close control over the inception of any slaughterhouse experiment, but will the Minister tell me whether there is any provision by which the commission and Ministry retain any sort of control over the experiment once it has been launched? What will happen if 12 months after the experiment has been launched circumstances arise in which the need for pressing forward with it conflicts with the need for earning private profit on the enterprise? Has the Minister any powers to insist that the needs of the experiment shall prevail?

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Ramsbotham): Perhaps the hon. Member will refer to Clause 23 where power is given for the commission to fix the charges.

Mr. Acland: Yes, but surely in conducting this experiment a great deal more will be in issue than the charges? Surely, it will be a question of experimenting with the best type of machinery, the best type of cooling chamber, and the best methods of organisation? Is it suggested that the commission will have no control over these matters? I do not think that the case is much better if it is a municipal

corporation. Members of municipal corporations are not experimenters. Their task is to get round the next corner, and they will only be able to justify work on slaughterhouses by its effect on local rates. It will not do for them to say to the ratepayers in a city like Birmingham that they have spent £100,000 out of the rates and have gained nothing, but "Look what discoveries we have made in the art of conducting slaughterhouses, which will be of immense value to the nation." That will not cut any ice with the electors of Birmingham.

Mr. Marshall: Is the hon. Member aware that local authorities have already made these experiments and have paid for them out of the rates?

Mr. Acland: That is very noble of them, but I think that if they should fail in these experiments the members of the corporation will have to pay for it at a subsequent election. But the proper people to make these experiments are the Meat Commission, who have the whole situation under review, and I would urge that point most strongly. They can make them in a much more thoroughgoing way. I fear that local authorities will tend to become orthodox and do the thing in the same way, whereas it is most important that these three experiments shall differ from each other so that we can judge which is the best. That is a point of the utmost importance, and I hope it will be considered.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. Lambert: I must congratulate my hon. Friend who represents a constituency adjoining mine on having been converted to the necessity that something must be done for the livestock industry. He and I represent a district in North Devon which is second to none in the whole of Great Britain for the quality of the beef produced, and he knows, as I do, that the excellent breeders in that country are passing through a heart-breaking experience. I have more than once endeavoured to bring before the House the really deplorable condition of the agricultural industry. I am convinced that we are living on past capital. No new buildings are going up, and the fertility of the soil is going down, but the real tragedy of the situation is the drain of agricultural workers from the land. In 16 years over a quarter of a million skilled men have left the land, and


to-day less than 7 per cent. of the population are engaged in agriculture. No country can be firmly founded on a decaying agriculture. While I welcome the efforts of the Government to ameliorate the conditions they really have not touched the fringe until they bring back to the land the many skilled workers who have gone. We are suffering from the competition of low-wage countries, and from the exigencies of policy in foreign countries. Not long ago eggs from South America were diverted here because Italy and Spain cannot take them. We are also suffering, especially in the livestock industry, from currency depreciation. The Argentine, Australia, New Zealand and Denmark all have depreciated currencies, and the British agriculturist has to meet them.
I candidly confess that I am disappointed with the Bill. I wish to see a stable and reasonable price for agricultural products—nothing more. The late Minister of Agriculture knows that no one will put money into the agricultural industry without some assurance as to future prices, and agriculture is not an industry that you can start in a few months. Production must be planned ahead, and there can be no planning of production unless there is confidence as to the future. I am anxious to find out why there has been a change in the policy of the Government. In 1934 it was a levy-subsidy policy. In the White Paper issued in that year the Government said:
We are of opinion that a plan based on a levy which would be on all imported meat, including livestock, would afford the best long-term solution of this problem.
Then in 1935 they said in another White Paper:
His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom are of opinion that a plan based on a levy, with a preference to the Dominions, will afford the best long-term solution of this problem.
The late Minister of Agriculture went to Shrewsbury and as a valentine to the agricultural industry on 14th February explicitly confirmed that policy. Now we have something new. Where is the levy subsidy to give stable prices to the agricultural industry?

Mr. Hopkin: And standard prices?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Elliot): The right hon. Gentleman asks

where is the levy subsidy and where is the standard price. The subsidy is in the Bill which the House will vote at 7·30 this evening, and the levy is in the Bill following which will be voted before the House rises to-night.

Mr. Lambert: Do they give any guarantee of stable prices?

Mr. Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman will not find in any White Paper any suggestion that standard prices form part of the Government plan.

Mr. Lambert: In 1935 the Government said in their White Paper that a levy on all imported meat was to be imposed with a preference to the Dominions. Is that in this Bill or in any Bill which has been introduced to the House?

Mr. Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman knows that a levy on all imported meat would involve a payment for all meat produced in this country. Does anybody suggest that the money collected from a levy on bacon should go to beef or that a levy on beef should go to bacon? The levy on bacon is to go to bacon, the levy on sheep to sheep, and on beef to beef. That is the Government's policy. Here is the beef man's money. The Bill carries out the Government policy.

Mr. Lambert: It is extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman did not find that out in 1935 when he issued the White Paper. I am somewhat confused —possibly it is my stupidity—but the White Paper certainly suggested a levy on all imported produce. There is no levy on all imported produce in this Bill, or in the Argentine Agreement Bill either. The right hon. Gentleman cannot get away from the fact that there has been a change in Government policy.

Mr. Elliot: I absolutely deny that there has been a change of policy, and the Minister of Pensions when he comes to wind up the Debate will have no difficulty in proving it. However, I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman any further.

Mr. Lambert: I do not mind being interrupted because I think I have the best of the case. If this does not mean a change of policy, I do not know what words mean. There was to be a levy on


all imported produce, including Dominion produce, and that has not been in any Bill before the House this Session. The right hon. Gentleman is a clever controversialist, but I do not think lie can get round that fact. When heard the Minister of Agriculture introducing the Bill I thought, here is a man beating a very little bird out of a very big bush. Now we have the tom-tit before us. The hon. Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Acland) went back to the year 1929. I go back to the year 1925 when the meat price was £2 12s. 7d. per live cwt. In 1926 it had dropped to £1 11s. 6d. Even before the War it was higher than it was last year. Before the War it was £1 16s. 4d.
What is this Bill, which so much excites the admiration of the Secretary of State for Scotland, going to do? The price of beef last year, according to the figures of the Minister, was £1 11s. 6d. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Barnstaple. I regard the statistical Department of the Ministry of Agriculture as being by far the most efficient part of the establishment. The old subsidy was 5s. a cwt., and the new subsidy is to be about 1s. 6d. more. If that be so, the price of beef, according to last year's prices, will be 38s. a cwt. Is that a paying proposition? I hope the hon. Gentleman who is to reply will give us his opinion on that point. Hon. Members opposite ask, as I think they legitimately may ask, why we do not get some information as to what is the cost of production? That information could be obtained through the agricultural colleges or the very able officials of the Ministry. I have been told that it costs something like 48s. a cwt. to produce first-class beef. Now these people are to receive, with the £5,000,000 subsidy of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is so proud, 38s. a cwt. And this is the Bill that the Ministry of Agriculture has been cogitating for so long. There is nothing in the Bill about other livestock products. What are the prospects for future prices? Can anybody say? If prices do not rise, it is obvious that this £5,000,000 subsidy is only a drop in the bucket, especially when one considers that the prices of feeding stuffs have recently jumped by 25 per cent.
I understand that something happened when the Australians came over last year

that induced the Government to alter the policy of a levy on Dominion meat. That is clear from the White Paper to which I have referred. It seems to me that the Australian statesmen came over and hypnotised our statesmen into agreeing that there should be no levy on Dominion meat. That is a point upon which I am going to argue, and in doing so I am only following my right hon. Friend's example, for in 1934 and 1935 he was in favour of it, but now he has changed. Why is it that the Australians tax our manufactured goods going into Australia, but that we are to admit their products free? A very admirable report came out recently by Mr. Dalton, the senior British Trade Commissioner, and he says frankly:
In spite of the additional preferences secured by the Ottawa Agreement, the share of the United Kingdom in the total of Australia's 'competitive' trade declined appreciably in 1934–35, and the figures for 1935–36, when available, will show a still further decline.
He goes on to say:
The percentage share of the United Kingdom in the last quarter of the trade year 1935–36 was the lowest for many years.
Why is that? Mr. Dalton says that the reason is that all the competitive products our manufacturers make are being taxed heavily in order to develop Australian industries. I will quote his words:
One of the main reasons was that the development of Australian secondary industries had been mainly in goods of which the United Kingdom was formerly the biggest supplier, and consequently that development had affected United Kingdom trade more than the trade of her competitors.
Why should Australian meat come into this country and practically cripple our farmers when the Australians are developing by taxation their own industries to the detriment of our manufacturers? Mr. Dalton points out that the loss in textiles, comparing 1931–32 with 1934–35, was £679,000; metals and manufactures, £1,662,000; and in paper, £215,000. We are suffering from this Dominion and Argentine competition. I want to give a preference to the Dominions, but I want to see home farmers secure first. Why is it that we have to meet the competition of these countries where currency depreciation is going on? In the case of Australia, there has been a currency depreciation of 25 per cent. What is to


happen in future? The quantity of Australian cattle coming into this country has increased very largely. Mr. Dalton gives the present Australian cattle figures: in 1929 they were 11,200,000, and in 1934—the latest figures—they had increased to 14,000,000. Are we to have this constant increase in the amount of Dominion products coming into this country, which will keep the price, without the subsidy, so low that our producers cannot make their production pay? I do not think it is fair: I am in favour of putting the home producer first.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Would the right hon. Gentleman smash the British Empire?

Mr. Lambert: I did not quite catch the hon. Member's remark. I do say that agriculturists are some of the most loyal people in the Empire, but one cannot expect the farmer to wave the Union Jack at the front door when the bailiffs are at the back door. With regard to the regulation of imports, I know that is a matter which does not rest with the Ministry of Agriculture—I rather wish it did—but with the Board of Trade. In any case, I do not think it is the right policy. What happened when bacon imports were restricted? Bacon prices rose in this country, but they also rose in Denmark. I do not want to benefit the Danish farmers; if they wish to send cheap bacon here, get a levy from them, and our people will benefit in two ways. The regulation of imports is a dangerous two-edged weapon. If imports are regulated, there is uncertainty, the product is not produced, and when it is wanted, it is not possible to get it, for it is not like turning a tap to get water. Therefore, I have urged, and shall continue to urge, upon the Government that there shall be regular, reasonable and stable prices. Let me take, as an instance, the price of wheat. A year and a half ago the price was 2S. 6d. a bushel, whereas it is now 5s. 6d., and there is no need for a subsidy. If agricultural production in this country is increased, security is given to the home consumer, and he cannot be so exploited by the oversea producers, for whether it be the Dominions or foreigners, they will exploit us and get as much money as they can.
There has been a great deal of talk about marketing. The word "marketing" seems to some people to be a blessed word, like Mesopotamia, but it does not mean anything. One of the first things I would do if I were Minister of Agriculture would be to go to Smithfield. Three-fifths of the beef sold in Smithfield to-day is controlled by foreign firms. Is there any other country in the world that would allow that sort of thing to go on? If we were in a state of emergency, we should be at the mercy of foreign firms. When it is a question of discussing marketing, that is the first subject to be tackled. I have not the least doubt that the position is the same in other large cities. Three-fifths of the imports are controlled by foreign firms, not Empire firms; and I know, incidentally, that there is difficulty in collecting Income Tax from those firms because they arrange the matter very skilfully.
I agree that there are too many markets, and I would like to see fewer, but in this matter one has to be very careful. I have discussed the question with a very experienced auctioneer, and he said that if the local butcher were destroyed and the butcher could not buy his cattle locally, he would probably get chilled or frozen meat, buying from the big foreign companies in London. Here is a very interesting fact. I have been told on very credible authority that at Ilfracombe, a well-known health resort in North Devon, where the population is about 10,000 ordinarily and rises to 50,000 or 60,000 in the summer, there is little more North Devon mutton or beef sold. The butchers send for their supplies to Smithfield and get frozen or chilled beef. [Interruption.] I am sorry to say our butchers are just the same as others; they try to get as much as they can. If the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. E. J. Williams) will come down to Devonshire and insist on getting North Devon beef, he will never eat anything else all his life.
Another point with which I would like to deal is second-quality beef. I cannot understand why the second-class beef market is not aided by utilising that beef in the Forces. I am amazed that that is not done. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Major Rayner) made an interesting speech on this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment for the Christmas holidays, and the Financial


Secretary to the War Office replied to him. Apparently the War Office prefer for their men these frozen slabs of bullock. Probably in the next war they will use them as sandbags. Why do the Government not help the second-class beef market and feed the men of the forces on this second-class beef, if they will not have the first-class beef? Personally I would rather see them using the first-class beef. It would provide a much better market for my constituents if they used the first quality of meat, but since they will not do so, I cannot understand why they do not, at least, use the second-class beef. It is infinitely better than frozen beef, which has to come over here and lie for six weeks before being unfrozen—and poor stuff it is when it is unfrozen. I submit that in dealing with the agricultural industry of this country we must reverse the engines.

Mr. Gallacher: Then where shall we get to?

Mr. Lambert: What is happening to-day? What has happened in regard to agricultural land and the increase in capital value in the last 10 or 15 years? It is starving the bees which gather the honey and feeding the drones which consume it.

Mr. Gallacher: Get rid of the drones.

Mr. Lambert: I do not mind the hon. Member's interruptions. But I ask the Minister to take seriously into consideration the points which I have submitted. I do not think I have said anything unreasonable about the position of the agricultural industry. I am certain that it is going down and I can only express the hope that it will be the good fortune of my right hon. Friend as Minister of Agriculture to reverse the engines and set it going up the hill once again.

5.18 p.m.

Sir R. W. Smith: The Bill which we are discussing deals with a most important item of Government policy. Those of us who represent agriculture in this House have constantly been told by the Government when temporary Measures for dealing with agriculture were put forward, that the Government had a long-term policy which would he introduced in due course. I suppose we are to understand that in this Bill we have at last come to the Government's long-term policy. If that be so, then I must say

that after all we heard about it in advance, it is a great disappointment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear.] I am glad to hear that hon. Members opposite agree. We have to decide on whether we are going to keep the livestock industry of this country alive or not. We know, of course, the attitude of the Socialist party on that question, but it is perfectly true, as we were told by the Minister yesterday, that the livestock branch of the agricultural industry accounts for three-quarters of the value of the output of our farms and if we kill that branch of the industry then we shall practically kill agriculture in this country. The Socialist party from time to time give a good deal of lip-service to agriculture, but I do not think they always show themselves willing to pay the price for the maintenance of our agricultural industry. I would ask them to remember that the farmer and the agricultural worker are the servants of the State, of the community, and of every one of us, and if you are going to maintain the agricultural industry, you have to pay a decent living wage to the farmer.

Mr. E. J. Williams: What about the miner?

Mr. Acland: Would the hon. Member apply that to all industries?

Sir R. W. Smith: I am submitting that if this country desires to maintain an efficient agricultural industry, it will have to pay for it, having regard to the competition which has to be faced with the products of other parts of the world, and there are very good reasons why the country should have to pay.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Does the hon. Member agree that if we have to finance industries in the way he suggests, they ought to be controlled by the State?

Sir R. W. Smith: I am not arguing that question now. I am dealing with a different point. My point is that if you require an agricultural industry you will have to pay for it and if you kill this branch of the industry you will kill the whole agricultural industry, because your land will not be fertile to grow another crop unless you have this branch of the industry. You would upset the whole condition of agriculture in this country if you swept away the livestock industry upon which a large number of people are dependent. You would do away with a healthy section of


the population of the country and, further, in the event of war you would find yourself in a serious difficulty. But I repeat that we must get it clearly into our minds that, if we are to keep the livestock industry and the agricultural industry as a whole going in this country, we must be prepared to pay for it.
What is the Government's policy with regard to the livestock industry? I suggest that the main point in the Government's statements on this matter, has been that we must give a remunerative price to the efficient producer. There was some little difference of opinion between the previous speaker and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland as to whether the policy outlined in the White Paper has been carried out by this Bill, but one thing which was clearly laid down, both in the White Paper in March and in the Government's statement of policy last July, was that there should be a remunerative price to farmers. Let us be clear on that point. Then we have to consider what is a remunerative price. Remuneration does not mean merely bringing the price up to the cost of production. It means a certain amount over and above that and the producer is fairly entitled to that amount over and above the cost of production, considering the number of years during which he has to carry on the industry at a loss. What the Government have to show us before we vote for this Bill is that it carries out the policy of a remunerative price. If they cannot show that these proposals will provide a remunerative price, then I submit that the Bill does not carry out the policy which was announced. I would like to refer to the speech made last night by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Western (Sir M. Barclay-Harvey) who asked about bridging the gap between the standard price and the cost of production he made this extraordinary statement:
I shall not attempt to convince him that the financial provisions of the Bill will be adequate to secure the object which he has in view"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 309, Vol. 319.]
I suggest that that is a strange position for the Government to adopt—that it is not up to them to show that this Bill is going to do what they promised to do,

while they expect us as representatives of agriculture to support them. The White Paper issued in March, 1935, stated:
The policy which His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom desire to bring into operation as soon as they are in a position to do so is to assist the United Kingdom livestock industry according to the needs of the markets from the proceeds of a levy on imports (with a preference to the Dominions), overseas producers being left free to regulate their exports to this market themselves.
I think we are entitled to say that the Government certainly have not carried out that policy and that the methods suggested in the Bill are not those suggested in the White Paper of March, 1935—and that was the policy on which we fought the last Election. The Prime Minister himself made a speech in one of the Eastern Counties in which he said that the wheat scheme had been a success and that it was proposed to deal with the beef situation on the same lines. I ask any hon. Member to consider what the wheat scheme was. It was a duty raised for a special purpose and paid into a special fund. In that connection the phrase "deficiency payments" was in everybody's mouth, and that meant a standard price, and a standard price is what we have not got in this case. I would remind hon. Members of what was written by the present Secretary of State for Scotland in an article in June, 1935:
There is another possible line of action especially suitable where, as with wheat and meat, we produce the smaller part of our total supply. That is, to put a moderate tariff on imports and to earmark the proceeds for home producers instead of paying in the usual manner to the Exchequer.
Is that what is proposed by the Government's present policy? I say that the former Minister of Agriculture was then, clearly, looking entirely to the lines of the wheat scheme when considering the beef situation, and therefore that this Bill represents a distinct change. But again I would remind hon. Members that the vital question to be considered in this connection is that we are entitled in this industry to a remunerative price. The Bill does not give us a remunerative price, and certainly I can speak for a very large number of my Scottish friends when I say that we feel that the Bill is not going to be of advantage to the industry. As regards the question of a standard price, it is, of course, necessary that you should have a standard price, and the Government in fixing the figure of


£5,000,000 must have had some standard price in mind. Take the statement which was made in July last by the then Minister of Agriculture. He said:
The Government propose to proceed on the basis of a regulated market with the maximum supplies for the consumer consistent with a reasonable level of remuneration for the producer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1936; col. 843, Vol. 314.]
Does the £5,000,000 represent that reasonable level of remuneration? Will that bring the price up to the cost of production? For 10 months of 1936 the price was 37s. 10d., and even if we add 1s. 6d. per cwt., this will not come anywhere near the cost of production. Further, I would like to point out that if, with the average price of meat at 37s. 10d., £5,000,000 is sufficient to give farmers a remunerative price, when the price rises above 375. 10d. in years to come the Treasury will turn round and say to the Minister of Agriculture, "You do not require £5,000,000 now. You required only that amount when the price was 37s. 10d., and as the price is higher now it must be cut down." What will happen after the Commission has been set up and there is a limit of £5,000,000 from the Treasury, and the producers produce so much more beef that it will cost more than £5,000,000 to pay the standard price? Will a proportionate amount be given?
The Government are not treating the farmers fairly. It seems almost unnecessary, as this Bill gives power to the Minister, to have a commission at all. We have a Minister of Agriculture who is supposed to work out a policy for agriculture, and all the information that the commission will give to him could well be supplied by voluntary effort. With regard to the question of marketing, it is clear that a certain amount may be done by legislation. The Minister says, however, that in the case of the new slaughterhouses it is necessary to have an experiment, and money is being provided for it. Why is there to be no experiment in regard to the closing down of markets? It would to some extent meet some of the difficulties which the auctioneers feel. The Minister, in pressing for the advantages that will accrue to the livestock producer by fewer markets, pointed out that there would be more competition and a larger number of farmers going to the markets that would remain open. For many farmers, however, a much greater cost will be involved in bringing the beasts

to market and that will reduce any advantage of the higher prices.
The Minister promised that before we came to the Committee stage we should have a White Paper showing the form of the subsidy arrangements. It is extraordinary that the Minister is able to give us already what those arrangements are to be when the commission has not even been set up. We suddenly find, when we come to the question of the subsidy arrangements, that the figures are drawn up already. I appeal for a great deal more information than we have had. The sheep industry of Scotland consider that it is being treated extremely unfairly. They say that the Government are making an alteration in the marketing arrangements because they are giving a subsidy to beef and that that will act unfairly to the sheep industry because it is not getting any subsidy at all. All the subsidy arrangements are to apply only to one form of livestock and the sheep farmers are to have no financial assistance whatever. The whole idea of the Government is to centralise as much as possible, and in centralising the markets and slaughterhouses they are supporting the principle that the large unit is more efficient than the small. If that be so, why are so many smallholdings measures brought forward for Scotland? If centralisation and larger units are the best, why do not the Government carry out the same principle in regard to the land in Scotland? Big estates are being smashed up to provide smallholdings, and yet the Government say that the best thing is centralisation. The Government have fairly let us down because they have not shown that the money they are giving is sufficient to make prices remunerative.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. David Adams: I am not a farmer but have a few friends who are farmers. Recently some professional people of my acquaintance have gone into farming. They are a banker, an engineer, and a professor in a college of a northern university. They have, I suppose, now joined the Jeremiahs and the Oliver Twists of industry, for yesterday and to-day we have certainly been treated to concentrated lamentations about a trade submerged almost equally with the Special Areas. It is a singular thing that these three friends of mine have decided, for financial reasons


to enter this depressed industry. I wonder what Messrs. Lloyds Bank Limited, in their monthly review for January of this year, mean by this statement under the heading of Agriculture:
Scotland.—In the livestock markets cattle and sheep have been forward in average numbers. Quality has been satisfactory, and good prices have been obtained.
What farmers hope to secure by this over-depressing of their trade I am at a loss to understand, and I must confess I was considerably perturbed to note, particularly yesterday, members of the Opposition giving their mild support to this Bill. Were they running into the arms of their hereditary opponents to escape the new cloud of witnesses of the new United Front? We have heard of persons running for safety even into a police station. The least that the Government and the agriculturists could have done was to demonstrate a case for the subsidy. They have not given us figures of production to justify it, and if the costs of machinery and foodstuffs have risen they must blame the Government. The farming interests would, of course, prefer to be ardent Free Traders in the matter of what they consume, but strong tariffists in the matter of sales.
The airy statements in regard to preserving agriculture have not convinced me that, taking agriculture on the whole, it is other than an exceedingly lucrative industry. Whether it be necessary to protect a particular aspect of it may be arguable, but when some £34,000,000 of taxpayers' money is passing into agriculture annually, it can have no other result than prove one of the most profitable industries in the United Kingdom. We were advised, as a substantial reason for the subsidy, that the value of livestock on farms was some £77,000,000 annually. I should like to ask, as a representative of a Special Area, what is the value of the disused labour in our Special Areas. If subsidies are to be given, they ought to be equitably given. We are handing out without any public control to a petted private privileged industry large sums of public money for an indefinite period, but in the matter of trading in the area from which I come the Commissioner was expressly forbidden to advance any money as subsidy to any concern that was being run for profit!
I object to the subsidy being split up between a tax upon the poorest people and a grant from the Treasury. It is folly to say that the Argentine farmers will pay the tax. If they are to pay the tax, why are sweetbreads, used for insulin, allowed to come in free from duty? It is obvious who pays the tax, and we have seen the effect of the various protective taxes on the cost of living in this country. That brings me to the question of the consumer. Where does he come in in this matter, and why is he not represented on this commission? The consumer's is a vital and general interest; it is the State's interest, and yet the consumer is not represented. The costs of foodstuff alone have risen since the standstill Order of 1934 by 4 per cent., largely through the operations of the Government. That is to say, the poorest people in our distressed areas, the unemployed and others, on the lowest standard of subsistence, have been called upon, since 1934, to pay almost 1s. in the pound more for the foodstuffs they consume than in that year. They certainly ought to be represented upon this commission.
We are told that municipal representatives will serve upon the Advisory Committee, but of what value will they be there? None. Consumers' councils were set up in order to protect consumers. I was sent by the Newcastle Corporation to interview the Consumers' Council here in London in regard to dear milk, which was costing the corporation £2,000 more per annum than before the Milk Marketing Board came into existence. I, and those with me, waited upon the Consumers' Council, who informed us that while they were ready to hear what we had to say they had no power whatsoever to deal with the disabilities under which we were suffering, and as we could not see the Minister of Agriculture, who was out of town at the time, we came empty away. Neither consumers' councils nor advisory committees, even if there are municipal representatives upon them, will be any protection to the consumers.
I turn now to Part III, dealing with the regulation of the quantities of livestock or meat imported. Powers are to be conferred upon the Board of Trade. If the Board of Trade is of the same mind as the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland we


are to have a sorry time in the years to come. The lot of the Special Areas will be made worse than it is. We send coal to the Argentine and to other cattle and meat exporting countries, and there will certainly be a diminution in the export of that coal from the coal-exporting areas, Durham, Northumberland and South Wales, by virtue of the new taxation which will be imposed on imported meat and the restricted amounts which are to come in. I suppose we shall have to find what consolation we can in the thought that we are aiding this poor, down-trodden agricultural industry, but it will be at the expense of Durham and Northumberland, which will be exporting less coal.
I warmly endorse the idea of central slaughtering, but the marketing and the slaughtering proposals ought in every case to go hand-in-hand. Having had some practical experience, as the ex-Chairman of a Health Committee of a large municipality, I want to say that these central abattoirs and markets can be run and ought to be run at a profit, and there is no need for Parliament to put £250,000 on one side to aid in this work. It is a scandal that we still have 13,000 private slaughterhouses. If the Ministry of Health had been as alert as it ought to have been during the last four or five years, when this Government has been in power, it would have seen that central abattoirs were created in all great centres of population. It is a melancholy thought that in the districts where private slaughterhouses are common, human tuberculosis is most rampant, and, bovine tuberculosis being the prime source of human tuberculosis, we know that a good deal of it arises owing to the lack of proper supervision on the part of municipal authorities in those places.
I took out some figures relating to the position in Newcastle, and I found that we have no fewer than 74 separate premises licensed for slaughter, and that the total number of animals slaughtered in that city in a year was 255,000. There were 86 tons of condemned meat, and 50 per cent. of it was tuberculous. It is also a notable fact that 7 per cent. of the milk still coming into our towns is also tuberculous. It is quite impossible, unless there are central

slaughtering arrangements, to deal with this, the greatest menace to the public health, and one of the most costly to municipal authorities, namely, tuberculosis, which is increasing and for which no cure so far has been found.
Finally, I would say a word to the Ministers on behalf of the claims of Newcastle to be selected for one of these central abattoirs. At the present moment the corporation have a scheme for central markets and abattoirs which will be equal to anything which the Government require. It is to cover 12 acres and will cost £320,000. Newcastle is one of the largest fat stock distributing centres in the country. It is the largest distributing centre in the four northern counties so far as home killed and imported meat are concerned. It is favourably situated for supplies of prime, fat, North-country-fed cattle, and it is in the greatest sheep breeding county of Great Britain, Northumberland. This proposition came before the city council before the idea of central abattoirs and markets was put before the country by the Government. I would urge upon the Government to take note of the fact that they will have there, ready to hand, in one of the great centres of this meat trade, municipal slaughterhouses which will fulfil all the requirements of the Government. I ask them to give that area, one of the most distressed areas, ultra-sympathetic consideration in this matter.

5.54 p.m.

Mr. Pickthorn: After listening to some 11 hours of this Debate—and I have listened to almost every word of it—it is not possible to feel quite sure that the world's happiness would be very much diminished if one more speech were not added. After that preface I hope that I may, without fear of misunderstanding, quote a phrase from the speech yesterday of the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price). He said of beef which has to travel long distances from central slaughterhouses:
The meat does not lose bloom, nor does it 'sweat' as it is called, on cooking, provided, of course, that it is not kept under cooling conditions too long."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; cols. 240–1, Vol. 319.]
I must apologise if my speech may have been kept under cooling conditions rather


long and have lost some of its bloom, and certainly I am aware of some slight tendency to sweat. One advantage, at any rate, of speaking at this late stage of the Debate is that it is hardly necessary any longer to argue that this Bill should be given a Second Reading. As the right hon. Gentleman who wound up from the other side last night said, there has really been little substantial disagreement on that point, and, indeed, almost the only speaker from the Socialist benches who spoke with real enthusiasm against the Second Reading was the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams), who has the unique opinion that the agricultural industry is one of the most prosperous of all industries in this country.
About the subsidy, my opinion, for what it is worth on this point, is that the guaranteed price was found to be a cock that would not fight at present, nor would the wheat analogy really fight, as things are at the moment, and so, no doubt subsidy was what it had to be. Almost everybody who has spoken has said that he dislikes subsidies, but most of them, with the notable exception of the hon. Member for Consett, have thought agriculture so peculiarly deserving an industry that for it they were prepared to swallow their objection to subsidies. Even the last speaker for the small party below the Gangway reminded us that it was no small thing that as a party they should be willing to give a small measure of approval to this small subsidy. Almost every speaker has expressed some dislike in general of any great increase of administrative power in dealing with a great industry, although most of them have thought the particular Minister concerned so particularly deserving that they were prepared to swallow most of their objections on that point also. But some of the objections to the increase of administrative power under this Bill may not unreasonably stick in the gorge of some of us, particularly in connection with Part II.
Before I come to Part II exclusively there is one other matter I wish to mention which touches all the parts of the Bill. I should think there never was a Bill which contained so numerous, so various and so complicated provisions about the consultations which the adminis-

trative authorities are to make with this House or the information which the administrative authorities are to give to the House. I have not counted them up very carefully, but I think I am right in saying that in various parts of the Bill there are a dozen references to that subject, almost all of them varying, some, in connection, for example, with imports and with tribunals of inquiry, obviously following in form the practice in earlier legislation—and obviously that is right and proper. But there are a dozen altogether, and on top of that there is an over-riding provision, which is becoming almost common form in Bills, taking this Bill out of the Rules Publication Act. All this may be perfectly right, but it has not been explained to us to any great extent, and it is all extremely baffling. It takes a highly technical lawyer to say under what parts of the Bill it is necessary to consult this House, what parts require an affirmative vote and what do not, and so on.
To return to the subsidy provisions of the Bill, I think the hon. Member for Western and Kincardine (Sir M. Barclay-Harvey) began by saying that we should have this amount of control over the provisions of the subsidy, that we could proceed by a Prayer. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Mallon (Mr. Turton) took the contrary view, and my view, which is worth almost nothing, is, for what it is worth, with him. It is very difficult to see what various controls we get over the various parts of the Bill. Whatever it is it is not very much. That seems to be a matter of absolutely first-rate importance, cutting at the whole policy of the Bill, particularly with regard to Part II. Dealing with Part II, the Minister was not up to his own usual standards of clarity. This is what he told us about it—I think I have all the quotations, or enough of them to be fair to him:
We must give…not only cash but an encouragement towards better quality production and that principle the House will find contemplated in the Bill.
I do not think the contemplation is quite so steady and quite so keen-eyed as might be expected. "Contemplate," according to the dictionary, means to look at with continued attention. So far as I can observe from Part H, it is possible under the Sub-section that there will be various grades of subsidy for various classes of beef, but it does not say that there shall be, and still less does it say


how they shall be arranged. To continue these quotations:
It is proposed…that an annual subsidy not exceeding £5,000,000 shall be at the disposal of the industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; cols. 188 and 190, Vol. 319.]
I looked up "disposal" in the dictionary too. There are a great many meanings for "disposal," and I think I have chosen one which fairly expresses the Minister's intentions. It is:
arranging, ordering, regulating, by right of power or possession, bestowing, giving, or making over.
It is not the industry that is going to make over this subsidy at all, nor, so far as I can see, even with great indirectness, is it this House, except with the extreme indirectness that it may turn out a Government of which it disapproves. A further quotation:
As the Bill entrusts the management of the subsidy to a permanent commission, it will be premature for me to say what precise figures are in view."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 190, Vol. 319.]
I hoped that we might get even some unprecise figures but we have not had any figures, or any information about what proportions are to be given to different sorts of people. Not only that, but we have not been promised that we shall get that before the Committee stage:
Before the Committee stage if possible." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 191, Vol. 319.]
At least half a dozen speakers yesterday referred to this branch of the question and to the desirability of knowing how the distribution of the subsidy is to be graded and proportioned, yet the Minister who wound up last night did not find it possible to do more than to repeat that the White Paper would be issued before very long.
Surely the question of the grading of the subsidy and of what proportions are to go to what parts of the industry is the essence of the contract. Surely it is a matter of general policy, and particularly a matter of the distribution of public money. It is therefore, it seems to me, almost uniquely the sort of matter upon which this House may reasonably presume, until it has evidence to the contrary, that it should be consulted, and consulted as the authority. We have had a great deal of talk about filling the gap between the price at which beef is produced and the price at which it is sold.

That gap is filled at present very largely by the fact that a great many people who have a little money—sometimes even university professors—the last speaker was apparently surprised to find that a university professor had a little money, and I confess that it surprised me—are foolish enough, or strongly enough influenced by aesthetic and sentimental considerations, to go into the industry and drop their money there. That is the way the gap gets filled up. But it cannot go on being filled up in that way for ever. Does anyone expect that £5,000,000 is going to fill that gap for everybody who produces anything that he calls beef?
The £5,000,000 certainly will not fill the gap if it is to be used in that way, and I suggest that it will be wasted unless two or three conditions are fulfilled, in the first place unless the money results in the production of good beef, Although the Minister began, very rightly and properly, by a eulogy of our pedigree stock in this country, I do not think that anybody doubts, and I can produce evidence from many previous speakers and many outside authorities, that our prestige is seriously jeopardised at the present by the unremunerative nature of the industry. I suggest that the £5,000,000 will be wasted, secondly, unless it reduces someone's losses to zero. It will not do the least good if it simply reduces the losses of a lot of people a little, because in that case those people will starve a little more slowly than they otherwise would. We might as well let them starve quickly. I therefore suggest that in the administration of Part II of the Bill there should be maximum attention to quality.
This House ought to have some guarantee that there will be some attention to quality and that it has some control over that attention; and quality means not necessarily exclusively what is considered good beef, but what sort of beef it is from other points of view, and what its origin is. It was explained by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. R. J. Russell) and by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton how the cow heifer is not a product of the beef industry but a by-product of the dairy industry. I consider that there is a very strong case for argument that the cow heifer ought not therefore to be capable of receiving subsidy. Similarly, it is clear that imported stores are not


wholly the product of the English or the United Kingdom beef industry. I think, therefore, there is a strong case for excluding them from any subsidy, at any rate after a very short period. I think I could argue that the dairy industry and the people who earn their livings, or try to, by fattening imported stores, would be no worse off, if those two exclusions were made. I think that can be shown, but I do not think I ought to take up the time necessary to endeavour to show that now. I conclude by inviting the House to consider whether the question of the maximum concentration of subsidy, or the contrary, of its dispersion over the widest possible population inside the industry, is not a question upon which this House or its Committee ought to give direction.

6.9 p.m.

Sir Joseph Lamb: I realise that I must condense what I have to say, because of the time. I would like to express my deep sympathy with the friends of the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams), who have gone into this industry in the belief that it was worth while. In considering the industry, hon. Members will have in mind two main factors, the Government's policy and the effect of that policy as outlined in the Bill. I do not wish to spend many sentences on the question of policy, which is, and must remain, the responsibility of the Government of the day. I would like to join with hon. Members who regret very much that an impression has been created in the minds of people inside and outside the House that there has been a change of policy. I say "an impression" because the Secretary of State for Scotland has said that there is no change of policy. That does not alter the fact that there is a general feeling that there has been an alteration of policy from the White Paper, in regard to the matters contained in the Bill. I hope, if the Government issue another White Paper on the subject, that they will be careful to see that it is one which they can accept later on, and that there will be no further variation from it.
The worst I can think of is that a lack of confidence has been created. I have had the pleasure of sitting in this House for 15 years now, and at no time in my experience has a Bill been introduced which has received promises of support

and of a vote on Second Reading and has been so universally—I will not say "condemned," but in regard to which so many warnings have been issued at the same time, so many doubts expressed and so many predictions of failure made about its results. Why is it that hon. Members support the Bill? Simply because the present condition of the livestock industry demands that something must be done. Although we may not like the Bill in its entirety as it is put forward, we shall vote for it, because we realise that in the parlous condition of the industry something must be done, while leaving responsibility with the Government for the methods which are adopted. The cattle industry is, at the present time, the cause of the unbalanced state of the whole of the agricultural industry. When you realise that livestock and the products produced in this country are not less than three-quarters of the value of the whole agricultural output, you can see what effect this has upon the livestock position. Beef production itself is one-fifth of the agricultural industry, showing again the importance of this branch upon the industry as a whole.
There are many other questions to which I have not time to refer, such as the fertility of the soil, which is maintained only by the keeping of stock on the land. Whatever may be done by means of artificial manures, you must have the humus which can be obtained only by the breeding and maintenance of stock upon the land. This country has always enjoyed a reputation throughout the world as having the best breeders, par excellence, of pedigree stock, but if the industry remains in its present condition that position will be altered.
It is not only a question of beef. I think we ought to issue a warning with regard to the condition of the country and its agriculture in time of war. We know that there are two sayings; one is that we learn from experience, and the other, which is equally true, that memories are short. Many people forget what happened in this country during the last War, but I am not one of those. I have special reasons to know the conditions in which we were at one particular time, when this country had only about eight or 10 days' food. I shall never forget the impression created


upon my mind then. Many people have had no experience but have only secondhand knowledge and, like all secondhand things, it is not quite so good as new. Those people certainly do not fear, as I do the position in which we should be if a war unfortunately broke out at the present time.
With regard to that particular aspect of the industry, it is only possible to store livestock and fats and meat products by maintaining a livestock industry in this country. These are not like other commodities, which can be stored in factories or warehouses; there must be an efficient livestock industry, or otherwise this country will find itself short of the essential fats and meat products which it may require at a particular time. Not only must they be in existence, but they must be available, and the difficulty of transporting the meat necessary for this country in time of war is one which will have to be taken into consideration.
I want now to say a word with regard to the subsidy, and I want to make it quite clear that I have never yet known the industry to ask for a subsidy as such. In fact, it has objected to subsidies as subsidies. What it has always asked for, and what is had the right to ask for in the past and has the right to ask for to-day, is that it shall have an economic price return. Whether that is to be given in one way or in another is not the responsibility of the industry. The responsibility of the industry is to say what it definitely requires, and that is an economic price return. In asking for that, it is only asking for justice, and the same appeal is being made, not only by all other industries, but by the distributing trades, which all demand for themselves a standard of living, and that that standard of living must be maintained. Moreover, not only the industries and the distributive trades, but all those who render services, whether professional or manual, demand that there should be an adequate return for what they give to the public. The farmer is in exactly the same position; he is asking for justice in that respect.
For many years now—more than I like to contemplate—neither the capital nor the labour in the agricultural industry has received fair treatment. Why has that been the case? We know that one of the greatest troubles in this country and in the world as a whole is that primary

producers have always suffered, and are still suffering, as compared with those in secondary industries. The agriculturist is a primary producer. Yesterday it was said by hon. Members opposite that farmers have never been satisfied with this or any other Government, but that is not the farmers' fault; it is the fault of the Government. One could say the same thing of other primary producers, the colliers in particular. I am not saying that the demands which they have made are not just, but the collier himself has never been satisfied with this or any other Government, simply because there has always been that great difference between the position of the primary producer and that of the secondary producer. Everyone in this country will, or should, fight against injustice but we do not fight against hardship. A hardship is made an injustice when that hardship is not equally divided as between one section and another. As long as agriculturists or other primary producers feel that they are not receiving equal treatment with other industries, there will always be a sense of injustice and a sense of unrest.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) said yesterday that farmers had always been leaning on the State. I deny that; I say that just the opposite has been the case for very many years. The State and the other sections of the community have been leaning upon agriculture, and taking from agriculture something to which they were not entitled. The present Secretary of State for Scotland, when he was Minister of Agriculture, speaking at Newport, made what I thought was a trite and true remark. He said that the fall in food prices since 1929 had given to the public a yearly saving of £150,000,000. The consumers have had that at any rate, and to that extent they have been leaning on agriculture. Many doubts have been expressed, not only in this House but outside, by farmers and others, as to the adequacy of the £5,000,000. As to that I will only remark that this £5,000,000 is a maximum, and not £5,000,000 which is bound to be spent. Again I say that we must look for results, and hope at any rate that the results will be satisfactory. I believe a great deal in the control of imports, though I know that there are some Members in the House who do not.


Here again it is not the power to control imports that I object to or doubt; my doubt is as to whether the Board of Trade will put these powers into operation adequately when they are in existence.
Many questions have been asked, and I am not going to attempt to answer all of them, simply because this is very largely an enabling Bill, and many of the questions that I have heard asked in the House are questions which can only be answered satisfactorily after the Commission and the Committee which are to be set up under the Bill have had the opportunity of considering them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) asked a question as to the lack of information with regard to costs of production. I know that figures for costs of production in agriculture are sometimes given, but they are not universally applicable. The conditions in agriculture are so varied and contrary that it is impossible to give definite figures for the costs of production in that industry, as they can be in other industries where the conditions are more stable and more similar. Moreover, the figures are affected by variations in the weather, the cost of labour, the quality of grazing, and all the various matters that I could go into if I had the time.
I want to express my great appreciation of Parts IV and V of the Bill, because, speaking for myself, I have far more hope of good coming to the industry through the full and proper operation of these two parts of the Bill than I have in the case of some of the others. I know there is a great deal to be done, and I believe a great deal can be done, in regard to marketing, but I should like to utter the warning that there are many districts in which the farmers are helped a good deal, not merely by the markets, but by the credit and assistance that are given by those who own the markets, and it is necessary to be very careful to see how the arrangement will work, and to recognise fully the advantage that the individuals who own the markets have given to the district. I believe that the centralisation of slaughterhouses will be productive of a great deal of economy, and will also be of advantage from the point of view of health. It may be news to some

Members of the House that there is one whole which has five quarters, namely, the animal. Those in the trade know very well that their profit has not been made from the disposal of the four quarters, but that it is from the fifth quarter that they have generally made their profit. I believe that, if we take to ourselves, through centralised slaughterhouses, the manipulation of that fifth quarter, there is a great opportunity for the making of economies which may be handed on in the form of an increased price to the agriculturist. But to my mind we shall not get the full value from the centralisation of slaughtering unless there is included in it a processing department. If that is not included, while a certain amount of advantage will follow from the unification of slaughtering, a great opportunity will be lost.
I think that very few Members in this House, and very few people outside, like the Bill, but, although we have doubts, we have still great hopes. We leave the responsibility for the Bill and its policy with the Government, having done the best we can to warn them of what the dangers may be. The farmer in the past has proved, not only that he will increase his production, which he has done, but that he is adaptable. The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) unfortunately made a personal attack upon me yesterday, saying that I have always discouraged the farmers from reorganising. I said at the time that that was not true, and again I say definitely that it is without foundation. Perhaps the hon. Member, being pressed for something to say in opposition to the Bill, was trying to draw a red herring into a meat Debate. I content myself with denying the accuracy of his statement. The farmers have proved that they will be willing to adapt themselves to any plan that may be likely to make the Bill a success, and I honestly believe they will do their best to make it a success when it is passed.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Alexander: As I have listened to the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb), who, if I may say so, is a very charming and well liked personality in the House, I have been reminded of my feeling right through the Debate yesterday, that there is a sense almost of unreality about this discussion. It seems to me that we have had a procession of


speeches from hon. Members representing agricultural constituencies almost repeating, like an Edison-Bell record, the programme for which the hon. Member for Stone and others who more or less represent the National Farmers' Union in this House stand. I am bound to say, speaking for our Amendment, that I have felt, as I listened to that procession of speeches, that it is extraordinarily unfair for hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, at every opportunity here and in the Press, to hurl charges against my hon. Friends on this side of sometimes being under, if not the dictation, at least the dominating influence of another place—Transport House—when the kind of importunity that we heard expressed here yesterday, and that was expressed yesterday under the chairmanship of the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Major Dorman-Smith) in the farmers' meeting, shows quite conclusively that the National Farmers' Union have a dominating influence over the policy of this Government.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) rightly pointed out yesterday the total of the assistance that has been given in the last few years to the agricultural industry. He pointed out very effectively, and from pretty sure figures, that that total amounts to £34,000,000 per annum. He did not add to that the total relief from rates on agricultural land, nor did he set out, as he could have done, the advantage to the agricultural industry of the artificial restriction of the supplies of bacon, on which there has been no actual levy or tariff. It is certain that, if the values from these two sources of assistance were assessed and added to the unchallengeable figure of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall, the value of the assistance to agriculture to-day through Government action is not less than £40,000,000 per annum—I should say, if one allows for the varying ages of those employed in the agricultural industry, a sum which would equal more than half the total wage bill of the industry—all coming out of direct or indirect Government assistance, and handed out very largely under the dominating influence of a farmers' body which is largely political, and which

stands over the Government with a reserve political fighting fund of about £60,000.
Whilst my hon. Friends and I have never ceased to recognise that there are factors in the agricultural industry today that call not only for reorganisation but for sympathetic assistance where it is needed, I am bound to say that the manner of the constant representations from this dominating political influence over the National Government has resulted in the assistance being given in such volumes and in such a diversified way as not to have led to the desirable results to agriculture that even those who ask for this largesse really desired.
Having made those general remarks about the position which is brought to our notice by the Bill, I should like to say a few words about its details. The first part is yet another indication, which is welcome, that the Government realise that, Bedford Square or no Bedford Square, the organisation of agricultural marketing cannot be left in the hands of a producers' body. The facts that in the case of the sugar industry the Government have had to turn down the basis of the old agricultural marketing scheme as it was proposed to be exploited, and to set up an independent commission, and the long-drawn-out inquiry by the Milk Reorganisation Commission has resulted in a recommendation that there should be an independent impartial commission of five persons set up to deal with milk, and now in the case of the livestock industry the inclusion in the Bill of the provisions of Part I setting up an independent commission, are a welcome recognition by the Government, that, however much all sides of the House recognise the need for coordination and organised marketing of agricultural commodities, that organisation and co-ordination cannot be left in the hands and under the dictation of one side of the community alone.
We want to avoid any sort of conflict between town and country. Any assistance given to such an important industry ought to be given in such a balanced way that it will bring national prosperity as far as possible and not do injury to other sections of the community. If the community is to have confidence in the scheme, it is essential that the management of the scheme be completely impartial, as I hope the Livestock Commission will be, or else it must be


representative of both sides and not merely one. In regard to the criticisms that have been levelled at the Government from the other side of the House on this question of the Bill, I hope they will stick to their Bill. If we are not yet able to get the full structure that a Socialist Government would introduce of a general agricultural commission at the top with ancillary and subsidiary organisations afterwards, let us welcome the proposal for an impartial body set up in order to avoid any general feeling of lack of confidence in sections of the community other than those who are engaged directly in the production of the commodity that is to be assisted.
I come to Part II of the Bill, which deals with the cattle subsidy. I regret very much that the Government are not apparently in a position, after nearly two and a-half years' experience of the administration of the flat rate subsidy of 5s. a cwt. to give any adequate information at this stage as to what process has been used in arriving at the total figure of £5,000,000 for this subsidy. There has not been a word of information of an authentic or illuminating kind to tell us how they have arrived at the figure. All we know is that it is a bit more, that there is a gap somewhere to be bridged, a gap based mainly on price but in respect of which we have no information at all about the cost of production. The hon. Baronet the Member for Stone says it is really impossible to get costs which will be valuable in this connection because they are so many and so varied. Agricultural importunists are very much like others. Their arguments vary according to the objectives that they have in view. I spent 36 days before the Whitehead Committee on the contract prices for milk for 1936–37 and, when it was a question of maintaining before that tribunal a wholesale price for milk which the farmers regarded as being the least that they ought to have, whilst the rest of the community thought it was much too high, they produced volumes of figures on the cost of production. I have them still in my office. It is true that the costs vary as between different parts of the country, and different seasons, from 6d. a gallon to Is. 3d., but if we had been dealing not merely with contract prices but with the question of what aid should be given by the Government, we should

be able to get somewhere near a real average of the amount that was justified to bridge the gap. But when it comes to a question of having a direct subsidy from the Government, it is quite impossible to produce costs that are of any value whatever.
I have heard in this Debate speeches which vary a little, but which seem to go back to 1929 in an estimate of the cost of production which was published in that year of about 52s. 3d. a cwt. All the factors in the raising and fattening of stock are not exactly the same to-day as they were then, but certain it is from inquiries that I have been making—I admit that they were in Worcestershire, which is a very favourable county for producing stock—that the costs that were submitted will not bear examination. If the Government have really been engaged in the last two and a-half years in producing a long-term policy in place of the temporary and piecemeal policy, and if they come to the House to-night for final and permanent authority to grant a subsidy of £5,000,000 a year for an indefinite period, the House has the right, in the interests of the taxpayer and of economy, to know from the Government, before they give a Second Reading to the Bill, exactly how they have arrived at this figure, which shows a further increase on the sums that they have been spending for the last two years.
Moreover, if I look at the actual position of the industry I am not at all sure that the way representatives of agriculture have been talking about it really does it too much good. I am not sure that it does good to go on talking down the state of the industry all the time. It does not really help to put it in the position of working hard—and it ought to work hard —for its own efficiency and reorganisation. Yet the figures of the livestock industry do not justify the tale of woe that has been poured out in speech after speech. It is not justified in regard to the actual figures of livestock, comparing 1930 with 1936, which show a huge increase. It is not justified by the figures that the Minister gave the day before yesterday of the number of cattle which have earned the subsidy in the last two and a half years. There was the huge figure for 1936 of over 1,700,000 and, if the rate of experience in the applications for subsidy had been the same in 1936 as in 1934, it would have been only about


1,300,000, showing a continuous and enormous increase in the number of animals that were getting through the certification centres for subsidy, and not apparently showing that the people in the livestock industry had stopped breeding and fattening.
We have had very little evidence from the Government with regard to price, but I feel that there are two factors in connection with the administration of the subsidy which have had a great effect on the industry. In the first place, there is no doubt that, in order to try to get the subsidy, beasts have been rushed on to the market in an immature condition before they were ready and that the herds have been damaged thereby, and there is no doubt that, in order to get the subsidy, many farmers have disposed of some, at any rate, of their cow heifers where otherwise they would not have done, instead of cleaning up the industry and lengthening the life of the dairy cow. You cannot possibly have a great quantity of cow beef always being put upon the home market and expect thereby to get the best prices for your fat stock.

Mr. MacLaren: The effect of the milk subsidy.

Mr. Alexander: If my hon. Friend will excuse me, I will keep to the point at the moment. But if he wants me to mention it, I would say that the milk subsidy and the scheme in general have had their influence in that connection. We have not only seen the huge growth in those parts of our livestock herds which are bred mainly for slaughter and food; the same sort of figures could, in fact, be found in the Minister's returns with regard to dairy stock. There is no indication in the statistical evidence produced by the Minister, that the tale of woe which has been put before the House in the last day and a half is justified to the extent that has been argued by certain Members of the House. Still, having put that point, and though we on this side of the House are not against assisting measures of reorganisation, and giving sympathetic treatment if it can be justified, we have no real, authentic justification from the Government for the kind of assistance which they are actually going to give.
The other thing I want to say about the cattle subsidy is this. We have been

working on the basis of 5s. per cwt. flat rate, and we are now to have an increased amount. We have been spending about £4,000,000, and we are now going to spend £5,000,000, and it is to be changed to a quality basis. The House has been asked to vote the money and to approve the change in principle, and we have not had the slightest indication as to what the basis is to be or how it is to be worked out. A Member for a Scottish division yesterday spoke about the unfairness of the administration of the subsidy in the past, and said that people have been getting their 5s. per cwt. upon cattle which were being sold at as low a price as, perhaps, 34s. and 35s. per cwt. whereas, he said, some of the Scottish farmers had been selling their beasts at as high as 51s. and 52s. per cwt., and yet they were getting only the same assistance. I wonder what the argument will be if, when the quality subsidy is introduced, the people who get the highest price for cattle receive not 5s. but 8s., 9s. and maybe 9s. 6d. a cwt. on the quality basis.
If that is not the position, we ought to be told what it is to-night. Why cannot we be told? It is not really good enough, as the Minister said in his opening speech, that there is to be a Livestock Commission, and that they are to have a say in what is to happen. He knows as well as I do, that many of us have been in touch with the Advisory Committee, meeting the Cattle Committee week after week and month after month, and discussing how the subsidy should be rearranged. The Government have all the information. Nobody doubts that the policy is already determined and that the Minister knows what it is. It would be a mere subterfuge to argue that the House should not have the information, when it is being asked to assent to the principle of raising the total of the subsidy and changing the basis upon which it is to be administered. That is not the way to treat the House of Commons. We are surely entitled to know.
Part III of the Bill deals with the regulation of the importation of livestock and meat, and I suppose it is almost useless to argue the principle of the thing with the Government. I saw in the "Times" this morning a comment upon the Minister, the Debate and so on, and it there said that nobody seems to worry much


nowadays about the regulation of imports or taxation upon food. Some of us do raise these points regularly and press them as strongly as we are able. Of course, there are those who argue that the whole effect of the tariff part of the regulation of imports may be met in part, if not wholly, by a subsidy from the Argentine. We do not know. We will see how it works out. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland last night said that, of course, the whole intention of the regulation of imports—I take it froth that phrase that it means whether from the point of view of tariff, or artificially to restrict supply—is to heighten prices. While it may be a very desirable object to raise prices in general, if you are to get thereby a corresponding rise in the purchasing power of the workers engaged, it will be far better for the representatives of the Government, in dealing with such a policy as this, to be quite honest about it and say what it is. The Under-Secretary of State was a little more honest—I do not make a suggestion of dishonesty, but he was a little more frank in his treatment of that point when he allowed it to slip out in his speech last night.
We know—and we must not shut it out of our calculations—that a meat conference is to be set up. I suppose—for we have not yet been told—it will be a joint conference between an Empire meat council and some other body set up by foreign exporters to this country, and that if they do not exercise such a voluntary restriction of exports to this country as will satisfy the Government, the Government in this Bill, make no mistake about it, have full power to do what they like. We shall have to wait to see its effect upon the consumers in this country before it can actually be understood. Let it be remembered also that there is a great deal being said at the present time about the actual effect upon the consumers of this country of the Government's policy of quota and tariff restrictions in the last few years. They know—I am sure that their economic advisers have pointed it out to them—that they have been exceedingly fortunate in being able to change and revolutionise the fiscal system of this country at the time of the lowest level of world prices. When he begins to see in the public mind the apprehension of the rise again, first to the normal level of, world commodity prices

on a wholesale basis, and then the retail prices, plus the effect of the restriction, and of the tariff to be levied, the right hon. Gentleman will find that perhaps there will be more chances of a quarrel between the consumers and the producers than any of us really wish to see.
With regard to Part IV which deals with livestock markets, I am all in favour not merely of wiping out, as the Minister is proposing to do, redundant livestock markets, but I have a very strong predilection for removing all unnecessary commissions and charges between the producer and the buyer. It has often been argued in the past that one could never get really satisfactory prices without large and effective auctioneering arrangements; that unless there were at the various main cattle centres in the country regular auctions at which beasts were knocked down to the highest bidder, you could not get an effective level of price negotiation. I do not think that that is true. At any rate, a very large number of sales are being negotiated off the farms. Where the producer on the farm has confidence, as he has in many cases, in his buyer, and when they can make absolutely honest appraisements between themselves of what the value ought to be, there is no difficulty. Rather than have, as you have in Scotland to-day, about 90 per cent. of the cattle sold on the hook under the hammer, and in England and Wales the great majority of the cattle sold on the hook under the hammer, I would prefer the development of two alternatives. Either there should be an extension of private treaty sales directly between the producer and the buyer or else—and I favour this very strongly—there should be a deliberate attempt by the Government—far more effective than yet attempted—to start sales on the deadweight basis.
I recognise that that brings me to another part of the Bill which deals with the slaughtering of livestock. You cannot have as live and as effective an arrangement for appraising the true values to be returned to producers on a deadweight basis unless your centres for slaughtering and grading are really effective, and efficient not merely in technique, but in volume, so that you can carry out your inspections on a satisfactory basis. That being so, I should


have thought that the Government would have been more courageous than they have been in dealing with Part V. They propose an experiment in three areas only. I hope that it will be successful. Although I do not claim on this point to speak for all my colleagues—and I have great respect for the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) yesterday—I do not hold the view that, in the experimental period, under such a Government as this, it is possible perhaps to have the whole thing as a State concern. It is true that we have been training them in small parts of Socialism bit by bit during the last five years, but I have not found anything very new in their agricultural policy.
I should be very glad if I could hear, apart from tariffs and quotas, from the Minister of Pensions, who is to reply, what new ideas in agricultural organisation and restoration have come from this Government since the Ministry of Agriculture was vacated by Dr. Addison. I should be very glad to hear the new ideas. It is not unreasonable for the Minister at this stage to provide for an experiment in which others than local authorities could engage if they wished. If that is so, I do not go so far as to say that we ought for one moment to support an experiment for the purpose of profit. Whether it is undertaken under Government auspices by a company or wholesale society, if it is undertaken as an experiment under this three-area scheme, it ought to be on a non-profit basis. I am persuaded that if the industry will face up to the real facts of centralised slaughter of that character, it can be done effectively on a non-profit-making basis. That does not mean that I would for a moment rule out an organised local authority or a group of local authorities who may, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brightside (Mr. Marshall) said yesterday, have spent some thousands of pounds of capital upon the local authority's abattoir, and that they should not be allowed to use that abattoir as the basis of a scheme for submission to the Government under which they could be capable of receiving help in order to extend its functions as a factory abattoir, which functions are not at present included in small local authorities' slaughterhouses. I hope that part of the submission of my hon. Friend the

Member for Brightside will not be ruled out, and I hope the matter will be explained and some reassurance given to local authorities on the question.
The points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) last night with regard to Clauses 17 and 22 of the Bill, in my judgment have not yet been satisfactorily answered, although I know that the Parliamentary Secretary tried to do so. Much to the disturbance of the Minister for Pensions I have gone even a little further in time than I intended to do, but I have left unsaid much that was in my heart as well as in my head about this industry. But I must in conclusion say that one or two Members have said that they have not heard any effective speeches from my hon. Friends on this side of the House about the real subject matter of the-Amendment which is that we are against the largesse, that in this policy of the Government you retain, first of all, a basis which is no basis, because you give us no costs of production, and, secondly, you administer it in such a way that it merely goes to swell the profits of private enterprise.
I have already said a word about the total value of help to the agricultural industry, which I assess at about £40,000,000 a year. Where does it go? I do not want to haggle or haver about it—I know that in the course of its circulation it gives employment here and there—but ultimately the surplus goes to the landowner. The Minister yesterday tried to be winsome about this. He said the land of this country really belongs to the people. I was unable to understand, exactly from the explanation he gave, the channel in which his thoughts were running, but we on this side certainly do not think that the land belongs to the people as a whole. Those of us who had experience of buying agricultural land in 1918 and 1919, after the agricultural industry had held the country to ransom in the hour of its extremity, cannot do so. What was charged to the consumers of this country by the agricultural industry during the War was preposterous. I remember the indignation meetings, the meetings of the Consumers' Council, I remember my own body being urged to go into the industry in order to stop the inordinate profits. I


remember how we were held up to ransom in buying the land. What happened then happens now in relation to every bit of assistance that is given. We object to money being granted in that way. We welcome the Minister's marketing reorganisation suggestions—we will improve them if we may in Committee—but we are unalterably opposed to giving to one section of the community unlimited grants without a means test while there are such restrictions placed on other sections of the community.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Ramsbotham: Before I endeavour to reply to the questions put yesterday and to-day, I want to refer briefly to a statement by my right hon. Friend at the beginning of his speech in yesterday's Debate. He was dealing with the arrangements for regulating the flow of beef supplies into this country, and he told the House that he proposed to entrust this duty to the International Beef Conference and the associated Empire Council. He said that arrangements for setting up that conference were well advanced, and that he hoped to be able to make an early announcement on the subject. In connection with that I should like to say that it has been agreed that the International Beef Conference and the Empire Beef Council shall have an independent chairman appointed by the United Kingdom Government. This appointment is under consideration. It has also been agreed that the producers' representatives shall be appointed by the Governments of the respective participating countries. It, therefore, falls to the United Kingdom Government to appoint the producers' representative for this country, and we have had in mind the desirability that the person appointed shall command the fullest confidence of producers generally.
The problem was how best to ascertain the views of the producers in the three constituent parts of the United Kingdom. We decided to take into consultation representatives of the Farmers' Unions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, through the medium of the Co-ordinating Committee of those bodies. They decided to recommend that Lord Bingley should be invited to act as the representative of the United Kingdom producers. They further recommended that the three organisations should pay

the expenses incidental to the representation, and provide the machinery necessary for consultation. These recommendations have been adopted by the Farmers' Unions of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Central Executive of the Scottish Farmers' Union is meeting at an early date to consider them.
I am sure the House was glad to hear from the right hon. Member opposite that the agricultural industry was worthy of sympathetic interest. We heard that also from the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), whose absence to-night I regret, and the cause of it, and we heard also that the producers should get a square deal. After having watched for some time the political activities of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, I am disappointed that we do not get more tangible evidence of their sympathy and assistance. When we propose a method of assistance to agriculture by means of a subsidy, the right hon. Gentleman votes against it. When we propose indirect assistance by means of tariffs, the right hon. Gentleman votes against it. When we propose assistance by means of regulation of imports, the right hon. Gentleman votes against it. He will vote against it to-night.
Whatever I do, and whatever I say,
Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way.
But what way is it? I am driven to the conclusion, from listening to the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, that he does not want anything in the nature of assistance until some grandiose agricultural commission has been set up and some scientific figure of costing has been reached. If that is so, he must literally wait till the cows come home—if any are left to come. It is true that under his regime and policy consumers might benefit for a short time by means of a general and comprehensive bankruptcy of the agricultural industry, and in the meantime the cattle producers would go to Hillsborough. But the right hon. Gentleman does his best to support four-fifths of this Bill, and we are proportionately grateful to him for his support.
Unhappily he has followed the sinister advice once given by Lord Randolph Churchill to the Opposition of that day, and tenders his support with a kick and not with a caress. That is not the case


with the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland). Nothing could have exceeded the charm with which he bestowed his approbation on this Measure. I am only sorry that he announced his intention of opposing the Bill which follows this, dealing with duties on beef and veal. I can only conclude that he is in favour of the car, but not in favour of the petrol. It cannot be said that the support of followers of the Government has been overburdened with caresses. My impression has been that a certain number of them are of opinion that the subsidy of £5,000,000 is not adequate. I would repeat what my right hon. Friend said some time ago, that it is possible that farmers are looking at this from the trough of the wave. No man would be foolish enough to prophesy on the question of prices, but I am by no means as pessimistic as some of my hon. Friends regarding the future.
After all, £5,000,000 is admittedly a large sum. It is also £1,000,000 larger than the sum which the industry has enjoyed by way of assistance during the last two years. It is also coupled with the statutory regulation of imports under Part III of the Bill. It is reasonable to take up the position that these advances may prove extremely helpful to agriculture. I would also remind my hon. Friends that the taxpayer is concerned in this. There are, regrettably perhaps, a good many taxpayers who are not farmers. It is no use blinking the fact that the taxpayer has many heavy burdens to carry at present, and it may be that the end is not yet. Taking these considerations into account, my hon. Friends will realise that the sum is on the whole a substantial contribution to the assistance they need. When I think of their speeches I am apprehensive that taxpayers who are careful students of the Bible, on reading the speeches, for example, of the hon. and gallant Members for Maldon (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise) or Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte) may recollect the passage in the Book of Proverbs which speaks of the two daughters of the horse-leech crying "Give, give."
The right hon. Gentleman and his party have laid considerable stress upon the need for ascertaining the cost of production. I think there has been rather a tendency on the part of the right hon.

Gentleman and his friends not only now but in the past to think of the agricultural industry in the terms of manufacturing or distributing, and that tendency has led them into the position of imagining that you can, or you may be able to, get something in the nature of scientific costings to ascertain what assistance is needed, in the same way as you can get such figures in a manufacturing industry. Let me put one or two points before the right hon. Gentleman on that matter. Attempts have been made by economists to get this data, but the data they have secured is extremely limited. It touches only a minute proportion of the farms of this country, and as it is only the more progressive farmers who keep accounts, the results are quite unrepresentative. The costing methods applied or recommended by economists have varied in accordance with the number of the economists. Hardly two of them can be found to agree upon the proper allocation of interest charges, manurial values and so on. As every practical agriculturist knows, it is extremely difficult to isolate beef production from other farming costs. For instance, the cost of the beef depends upon the cost of growing the crops. You must have estimates of the cost of home grown foods, estimates of the cost of manurial residues, and of your stores.
The difficulties of obtaining anything in the nature of scientific figures are acute, and if we have to wait for that, we shall have to wait almost an indefinite period. For instance, the advisory economist of the Eastern Counties has discontinued keeping costing accounts, because he says that it was impossible in practice or theory to distinguish clearly between the various enterprises of a mixed farm. If we are to get more data we may get something that purports to be the best scientific figure, but even so the result would really be meaningless, and would be perfectly useless, for the reason that there is a very wide diversity of conditions. The right hon. Gentleman imagines that you can apply to beef costings the same methods that you would apply to milk costings. Milk is produced on the same farm both in winter and summer. On the other hand, in the production of beef there is grass-fed beef and winter stall-fed beef, and there are different methods of production. There is the problem of feeding a store and the problem of feeding a grass-fed


beast, and the problem of winter feeding and summer feeding. Feeding is not a standardised problem. There is all the difference in the world between feeding a 9½ cwt. beast, to make it a super-quality beast, and feeding an Irish store, which you are just going to get up to the minimum standard sufficient to attract the subsidy. Yet the right hon. Gentleman thinks that you can have a figure which is applicable to the two. You cannot.

Mr. Alexander: I have such figures of costing, which quite clearly take in the four sections. We have the costings of animals imported for winter and summer feeding and the cost of animals homebred, both for winter and summer feeding. There is no difficulty about it.

Mr. Ramsbotham: The right hon. Gentleman may have those costings, but he will have the greatest difficulty to persuade any economist that they are correct. A statement made by a man of eminence, Mr. James Wyllie of the South-Eastern Agricultural College, which appeared in the National Farmers' Union Record for August, 1935, was to this effect:
It is perhaps fair to assume that supporters of the price-upon-cost idea generally have in mind what they would call 'average' costs, but it is clear that an average cost would make no appeal whatever to those producers whose costs were over the average, that is, to about one-half of the producers.
The whole of this problem is so complicated that it would really be playing with the situation to follow the counsel advocated by the right hon. Gentleman and postpone assistance to the industry until correct figures can be ascertained. He asked on what basis the subsidy has been fixed. It is not difficult to answer that question. I think it was in 1933 that there was a collapse in cattle prices, and the object of the subsidy then was to stop the rot and to give temporary assistance. The cattle industry had suddenly slipped off the ledge and was falling into the abyss, and an endeavour had to be made to pull it back. On the basis at that time of the average realised price of the recent years before the collapse it was assumed that a figure of 5s. per cwt. would be just about enough to put the industry back on to the ledge. In regard to the present Bill it is desired, and I think the House is fully in accord with the

desire, to encourage the production of a better product, and for that purpose there is an increase in the amount of money made available of £1,000,000, making up the total of £5,000,000.
Not only the right hon. Gentleman but the Junior Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn felt rather hurt that the subsidy arrangements had not been published. The subsidy arrangements for bestowing this extra encouragement are of necessity complicated and difficult. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the conversations and negotiations that were going on with the interests with which he is concerned, but there are many others. The main machinery of certification is known to the House. It has been going on for two and a half years and it will continue to go on and negotiations are proceeding to get the necessary modifications required to provide the quality arrangements. These will be put before the House in the form of a White Paper, but I cannot give the definite date. I hope that it will be before we get into Committee on the Bill; at any rate, it will be long before the House passes the Bill.
Some of my hon. Friends returned again and again to the question of standard price. My right hon. Friend dealt with arguments against this method of bestowing assistance yesterday, but I would once more impress upon hon. Members the point which he made, that it would be most unwise of this House to impose upon the Treasury a liability which is unlimited, such as would be involved in a standard price—a liability which they cannot estimate. It would be a liability which might have exactly the same disastrous results for agriculture that the Corn Production Act had some years ago. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin), in a very interesting speech yesterday, which exhibited his deep acquaintance with agricultural topics, showed that he was not entirely with some of his colleagues of the Front Bench on the subject. He referred to Part III of the Bill and, I am sorry to say, described it as eye wash. He even went so far as to say it was a fraud. I do not think that he quite understood Part III, which deals with the regulation of imports as an essential portion of the Bill. It is not a super-


fluity by any means. The hon. Member mentioned the Argentine Agreement, but I would point out that that Agreement with the Argentine only lasts for three years, whereas it is not unduly ambitious to hope that this Bill will continue on the Statute Book for a longer period. There are at the moment no statutory powers to regulate imports from the Dominions, the present arrangements being voluntary. This Bill will confer statutory powers for that purpose.

Mr. Hopkin: As long as the Treaties are in force in those countries, are you able to control imports at all?

Mr. Ramsbotham: Yes, certainly, not only under the terms of the Treaties, but through the International Beef Conference. The hon. Member yesterday did not appreciate that Part III gives statutory powers to regulate imports from the Dominions, which at present are based on temporary arrangements only, and also powers to regulate the flow of imports during certain periods, without which the imports in those periods might result in seasonal flux and casual gluts. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Don Valley or the hon. Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield fully appreciate the effect of the slaughtering provisions. The right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) was not in entire agreement with the hon. Member for Don Valley as to who are to operate the central slaughterhouses which are to be set up as an experiment. I think he will agree with me that it would be highly unwise to have these slaughterhouses operated either directly by the Government or indirectly by the Commission. If that were so, it would cause consternation among local authorities, particularly those large local authorities which are running public abattoirs. The Bill will make provision for local authorities, or any body whose case is justified—it may be a cooperative society—to undertake the work of experimental slaughterhouses. The hon. Member for the Brightside Division misunderstood the purpose of the grant of £250,000 mentioned in the Bill. That grant of £250,000 is not proposed with the idea that it will be sufficient for the three slaughterhouse schemes, but that sum, split up among the three, will provide a substantial inducement to local

authorities or other bodies which are prepared to set on foot the work of central slaughterhouses in a selected area, and such inducement is justified because they will be pioneers in doing work the result of which will be of national importance.
I do not want to enter into the respective merits of private and public enterprise at this stage, but the hon. Member for Barnstaple referred to the fact that there was a Clause in the Bill which laid on the Commission the duty to fix charges, and if any hon. Member thinks that here is a case in which some speculator can attract public money and make unjustifiable profits, I think he can feel thoroughly reassured. I do not know whether the hon. Member for the Brightside Division or any of his friends might contemplate erecting public abattoirs, but I should not be surprised to hear that the ratepayers in many towns are getting tired of losing money upon their abattoirs, and I am bound to say that when I compare the financial results of Scottish abattoirs with those of English abattoirs, it redounds very much to the credit of Scotland, where they nearly cover the interest by their charges.

Mr. Marshall: I think the hon. Member should remember that the Scottish local authorities have always had greater powers than those conferred in this respect upon the English authorities.

Mr. Ramsbotham: I am aware of that, but in that matter we are here trying as far as we can to draw level with them. The hon. Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) drew my attention to the case of Newcastle, and I can assure him that that area, along with other areas which are equally interested in this matter, will certainly have its case considered. I do not wish to detain the House at any greater length, but I would like, before concluding, to say a word or two on the question of cow beef. Although admittedly the existence of cow beef posing as beef of higher quality is detrimental to the beef trade, I think the amount of cow beef at present posing in that way is not as large as some people imagine, and the problem is not so difficult as might be thought. The hon. Member for Don Valley some time ago, I think, stated, and quite


rightly, that there had been an increase in the production of beef in the last two years of 100,000 tons, and he asked what proportion of that increase was due to an increased output of cow beef. The proportion of cow beef to the total output is estimated—and these estimates must in the nature of things be very rough—at about a third, and therefore, with an increased output of beef in recent years of 100,000 tons, the proportion would be something like 36,000 tons; but of that some would be young cows and some would be well finished carcases from older cows, making quite good beef; and I happen to know that in the North of England this class of beef is often preferred to chilled imported beef. Broadly speaking, it is estimated, very roughly, that about two-thirds of the cow beef is what you might term beef of respectable quality. I put it no higher than that. Therefore 12,000 tons remain which is of a quality which we should like to see very much improved, and that is only about 2 per cent. of the whole output. I do not think the problem is quite of the magnitude that some people imagine. At the same time, it is a problem, and we hope, by some of these schemes in the Bill and by means of a further extension of the National Mark, to eliminate even that amount of the problem which still exists.
The key note of this Bill is contained in words which constantly recur throughout its Clauses—"the promotion of efficiency and economy." Apart altogether from the assistance given—and this is considerable—I commend this Bill to the House on its merits, as an endeavour to remove obstacles in the way of progress

and to reform methods of marketing and slaughtering which are both uneconomic and archaic. As regards the assistance to be given, I submit that the majority of farmers in this country realise that if public money is to be spent, the public has a right to the assurance that it will be spent as economically and as efficiently as possible, and they will appreciate that the function of the Legislature is not so much to provide them with financial assistance as to create conditions which will give full scope to their skill, judgment, and enterprise, realising, as I have no doubt they do, that in the final resort success will depend upon the individual, and that
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which Laws or Kings can cause or cure.

But there may be some farmers who concentrate their attention on the money to be paid to them by the State and who do not appreciate the immense value to their industry of the reform of marketing and slaughtering, and the benefits of education and co-operation rendered possible through the Clauses of this Bill. I very seldom indulge in a Latin quotation. It is no longer fashionable, particularly perhaps in an agricultural debate, but I cannot resist reminding such farmers of the very well known line in the greatest of all agricultural poems, the Georgics of Virgil: "O! fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!" which would translate as follows: "How exceedingly blest would those farmers be if they only knew what was good for them."

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 240; Noes, 106.

Division No. 49.]
AYES.
[7.38 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke
Blindell, Sir J.
Cartland, J. R. H.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Boothby, R. J. G.
Cary, R. A.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Boulton, W. W.
Castlereagh, Viscount


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Boyce, H. Leslie
Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)


Aske, Sir R. W.
Brass, Sir W.
Channon, H.


Assheton, R.
Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)


Atholl, Duchess of
Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Clarry, Sir Reginald


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Clydesdale, Marquess of


Balniel, Lord
Bull, B. B.
Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)


Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.
Bullock, Capt. M.
Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Burghley, Lord
Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S. G'gs)


Beamish, Roar-Admiral T. P. H.
Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)


Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)
Butler, R. A.
Courtauld, Major J. S.


Blair, Sir R.
Cains, G. R. Hall-
Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.


Blaker, Sir R.
Campbell, Sir E. T.
Craddock, Sir R. H.




Cranborne, Viscount
Hume, Sir G. H.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Craven-Ellis, W.
Hunter, T.
Remer, J. R.


Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page
James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)


Crooke, J. S.
Keeling, E. H.
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Crossley, A. C.
Kimball, L.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Crowder, J. F. E.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Davies, C. (Montgomery)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Rothschild, J. A. de


Dawson, Sir P.
Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)


Denville, Alfred
Leckie, J. A.
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Dixon, Capt. Rt. Hon. H.
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)


Doland, G. F.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.
Salmon, Sir I.


Donner, P. W.
Lewis, O.
Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)


Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
Liddall, W. S.
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)


Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Savery, Servington


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Lloyd, G. W.
Scott, Lord William


Dugdale, Major T. L.
Loftus, P. C.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Duggan, H. J.
Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Selley, H. R.


Duncan, J. A. L.
Lyons, A. M.
Shakespeare, G. H.


Dunne, P. R. R.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Eastwood, J. F.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
M'Connell, Sir J.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Ellis, Sir G.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Elmley, Viscount
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st)


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Entwistle, C. F.
McKie, J. H.
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Errington, E.
Magnay, T.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)




Everard, W. L.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Spender-Clay, Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.


Furness, S. N.
Markham, S. F.
Spens, W. P.


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)


Gluckstein, L. H.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Goldie, N. B.
Moreing, A. C.
Sutcliffe, H.


Gower, Sir R. V.
Morgan, R. H.
Train, Sir J.


Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Tree, A. R. L. F.


Gridley, Sir A. B.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Grimston, R. V.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Munro, P.
Turton, R. H.


Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)
Nall, Sir J.
Wakefield, W. W.


Guy, J. C. M.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Hamilton, Sir G. C.
O'Connor, Sir Terence J.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Hanbury, Sir C.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Hannah, I. C.
Palmer, G. E. H.
Warrender, Sir V.


Harbord, A.
Patrick, C. M.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Harris, Sir P. A.
Peake, O.
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)
Peat, C. U.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)
Peters, Dr. S. J.
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Hoilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Petherick, M.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Hepworth, J.
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Withers, Sir J. J.


Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)
Radford, E. A.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.
Wragg, H.


Holmes. J. S.
Ramsbotham, H.
Wright, Squadron-Leader J. A. C.


Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Ramsden, Sir E.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Hopkin D.
Rankin, R.



Home, Rt. Hon. Sir R. S.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Rayner, Major R. H.
Major Sir George Davies and


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Captain Waterhouse.




NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Cluse, W. S.
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Dalton, H.
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)


Adamson, W. M.
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Hardie, G. D.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)


Ammon, C. G.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Day, H.
Hills, A. (Pontefract)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Dobbie, W.
Hollins, A.


Banfield, J. W.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
Jagger, J.


Barnes, A. J.
Ede, J. C.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)


Bellenger, F. J.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)


Bevan, A.
Frankel, D.
Kelly, W. T.


Broad, F. A.
Gallacher, W.
Kirby, B. V.


Bromfield, W.
Gardner, B. W.
Lathan, G.


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)
Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Lawson, J. J.


Burke, W. A.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Leach, W.


Cape, T.
Grenfell, D. R.
Lee, F.


Charleton, H. C.
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Leonard, W.


Chater, D.
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Leslie, J. R.







Logan, D. G.
Parker, J.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Lunn, W.
Parkinson, J. A.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Stewart, W. d. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


McEntee, V. La T.
Potts, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


McGhee, H. G.
Price, M. P.
Thorne, W.


MacLaren, A.
Pritt, D. N.
Tinker, J. J.


Maclean, N.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Viant, S. P.


Mainwaring, W. H.
Ridley, G.
Walkden, A. G.


Marshall, F.
Riley, B.
Watson, W. McL.


Messer, F.
Ritson, J.
Westwood, J.


Montague, F.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Whiteley, W.


Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)
Rowson, G.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Salter, Dr. A.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Muff, G.
Sanders, W. S.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Naylor, T. E.
Sexton. T. M.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Noel-Baker, P. J.
Shinwell, E.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Oliver, G. H.
Short, A.



Paling, W.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—




Mr. Groves and Mr. Mathers.


Question put, and agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: There are two Instructions on the Order Paper, one in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) and the other in the name of the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). Neither of them is in Order.

Orders of the Day — LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY [MONEY].

Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.

[Sir Dennis Herbert in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the development and better organisation of the livestock industry and industries connected therewith, for paying a subsidy to producers of fat cattle, for regulating the importation of livestock and meat, the holding of livestock markets and the slaughtering of livestock, and for purposes conected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient—

(1) to authorise, subject to the provisions of this Resolution, the making of the following payments out of moneys provided by Parliament, that is to say—

(a) payment of such remuneration and allowances to the members, officers and servants of the Livestock Commission constituted by the said Act as may with the approval of the Treasury be determined under the said Act;
(b) payment into the fund for the purposes of the said Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Fund') of such sums, not exceeding five million pounds in the aggregate in any one financial year, as may with the approval of the Treasury be determined under the said Act;
(c) payment of such remuneration and allowances as may with the approval of the Treasury be determined under the said Act to such persons as the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland may respectively employ to grade and to mark

carcases, and to perform services in connection with such grading and marking; and
(d) payment of the sums required to defray any expenses which, otherwise than on account of payments falling to be made under the said Act to producers of fat cattle, are incurred for the purposes of the said Act by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, by a Secretary of State, by the Board of Trade, or by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, not being expenses directed by the said Act to be defrayed out of the Fund;

(2) to authorise, subject to the provisions of this Resolution, the making, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of such advances (either by way of loan or by way of grant or partly in one way and partly in the other), and on such terms and conditions as may, with the approval of the Treasury, be determined under the said Act, with a view to assisting the carrying out of arrangements for the provision or alteration of slaughterhouses which are to be deemed to be central slaughterhouses for the purposes of schemes under the said Act;

(3) to authorise the Treasury, during the period beginning on such day as may be appointed by order of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Secretaries of State respectively concerned with agriculture in Scotland and in Northern Ireland (hereinafter referred to as 'the appointed day') and ending on the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, to advance to the fund, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, sums not exceeding in the aggregate one million pounds, so, however, that the amount of any sums so advanced to the fund shall be repaid therefrom to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom not later than the end of the said period; and

(4) to require payment out of the fund to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom—

(a) of amounts equivalent to the amounts paid out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of remuneration and allowances payable to the members, officers, and servants of the said Commission; and
(b) of such amounts as, in the opinion of the Treasury, approximately represent the accruing liability attributable to the


execution of the said Act in respect of pensions, allowances, and gratuities under the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1935, and the rental value of any premises belonging to the Crown and used by the said Commission, being premises in respect of which no rent is payable;

Provided that—

(i) paragraph (1) of this Resolution shall not authorise payment into the Fund, in the financial year ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, of more than the number of pounds which bears to five million the same proportion as the number of days falling between the beginning of the appointed day and the end of the said financial year bears to three hundred and sixty-five; and
(ii) paragraph (2) of this Resolution shall not authorise the advancing of more than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in all, or the advancing, by way of grants, of more than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in all—(King's Recommendation signified).—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

7.50 p.m.

Mr. Kelly: I should like to ask one question. At the present time certain people are now in the employ of the Department dealing with matters which will be passed on to the Commission. Are we to understand that those people who may not be required in the positions they now Occupy will be taken into the service of the Commission and given an opportunity of employment there under conditions similar to those they now have?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: That is a matter for another Department, but I can give a general assurance to the Committee that as far as possible in the work of the Commission the experience of officers who have previously served on the Cattle Committee will be utilised.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — BEEF AND VEAL CUSTOMS DUTIES BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

7.52 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This is a beef and veal Bill, and unlike the last dish, it is not quite fresh. It has been fully savoured already, when in December last the Financial Resolutions Were discussed in Committee of Ways and

Means. For that reason I do not propose to speak at much length. I recollect, however, that on the occasion to which I have referred some complaint was made by hon. Members opposite that the agricultural aspect of the problem had not received more attention. That contention cannot be voiced on this occasion, because we have had a day and a half devoted to the livestock question with speeches by three Ministers on the subject. Therefore, the agricultural aspect has had very full consideration. The provisions of the Bill were discussed on the Financial Resolutions, and are confined to what is necessary to impose the duties set out in the Resolutions. The assistance we propose to give to the cattle industry will impose some burdens on the Exchequer, which will have to be met out of the general revenues of the country, and in this Bill we are asking the House to provide additional revenue.
I may be asked why this particular method has been taken of raising the additional revenue which is necessary, and why we have taken this time of the year to introduce a revenue-raising Measure. There are two answers. In the first place, the difficulties of the producers of cattle in this country have been a matter of concern to the Government for many years, and they have been recognised by the assistance already given in the Cattle Industry (Emergency Provisions) Acts of 1934 to 1936. These difficulties have not been easy of solution. There will be no doubt about that. There have been many and often conflicting interests to contend with, and while we have been anxious to introduce more permanent measures than the emergency legislation, the nature of the subject has precluded us from doing so earlier. Further, we have, of course, in any permanent scheme to consider the needs of the Exchequer and the necessity for maintaining international trade, and particularly overseas trade, which is of such importance to the country. The House is aware of the trade and commercial agreement made between this country and the Argentine Republic, which was signed on the 1st December last year. The Bill now before the House provides that the duties shall be deemed to have been in operation as from the 16th December, 1936. The rates of duty in the Bill as in the Financial Resolution are the highest permissible under the Argentine Agreement


and form part of the bargain negotiated with the Argentine Government. They are such as in the Government's view are necessary to maintain for this country the benefit of the valuable concessions we received under the old Argentine Agreement. When that agreement ran out it was necessary to have a further agreement. We should have been remiss, I stress this point, in our duty of husbanding the nation's finances if we had not taken advantage at the earliest possible moment of our agreement with the Argentine. That answers the question why we are bringing in this Measure at this moment—it is the earliest possible moment having regard to our commitments with the Argentine.
The Bill provides for a specific duty on certain kinds of meat and veal with an ad valorem duty on other descriptions of beef and veal, as set out in the first Clause. With one exception the ad valorem incidence of all the duties is approximately the same—20 per cent. They have, in fact, been determined by the measure of the duty on chilled beef. The one exception is the duty on tinned tongue which will be 20 per cent. in addition to the present duty, 10 per cent., and has been imposed in order that the preference enjoyed by British manufacturers may be maintained.
The provisoes of the Financial Resolutions exclude from the liability to duty imports of raw tongue, tinned tongue and chilled beef. These provisoes are not repeated in the Bill, but their effect will be continued by Order-in-Council under Section 14 of the Finance Act, 1933, which will be laid before the House and will take effect immediately on the passing of the Bill. The House will probably recollect that the reason for this exclusion, as I explained in Committee, is that for the time being, under the Anglo-Polish Trade Agreement, the duty on tinned tongue and jellied veal is consolidated at 10 per cent., the rate of duty to which they are at present subject under the Import Duties Act. Sub-section (2) of Clause r exempts from its operation imports of sausages and paste, which already pay a 30 per cent. duty, and Sub-section (1) exempts sweetbreads, for the reason, as I explained before, that a considerable part of our imports of the raw material

is used for the manufacture in this country of insulin and its salts.
None of the duties which it is proposed should be charged under the Bill will apply to Empire products. The House is aware that we recognised in the Ottawa Agreements the importance to the Dominions of the development of their beef industry, and as part of the negotiations which we have had with them to secure their participation in the scheme for the orderly regulation of supplies to our markets—and again I stress the importance of securing agreement with the Dominions on this question of orderly regulation—it has been agreed that Dominion supplies should have preference to the full extent of the duties permissible under the Argentine Agreement. Accordingly, Empire products enjoy free entry as hitherto. The reason for that undertaking was clearly explained to the House and accepted by it on the occasion when the Resolutions were discussed in Committee of Ways and Means.
Under the Financial Resolutions which were reported on 15th December, the Customs and Excise Department has, since 16th December, in accordance with the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1913, required payment of duty on goods already subject to duty, and under Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1926, has obtained security against payment of the duties on goods not at present subject to duty which will become dutiable on the passage of this Bill. This was fully explained to the House at the time when the Resolutions were discussed. I have had inquiries made from the Commissioners of Customs and Excise on the exercise of their powers in this matter, and I am satisfied that the collection of the duties will proceed without friction and that the co-operation of the importers and all concerned is readily forthcoming. The experience gained since the reporting of the Financial Resolutions confirms that the estimate of rather over £3,000,000 which I gave to the Committee of Ways and Means will be closely justified. That is our experience so far.
The provisions of the Bill are the result of very careful consideration both of the needs of the Exchequer and the interests of producers and consumers in this country. The Government are satisfied that


the interests of the consumers will, in the long run, best be served by the policy which they recommend, that of combining a subsidy with a moderate duty, which is at the same time an outcome of long negotiations both with the Dominions and the Argentine. I would emphasise that I believe the Government's proposals for the assistance of the livestock industry, of which this Bill is one, are framed to secure the maximum advantage to the nation as a whole.
The hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes), whose name I am sorry to see attached to an Amendment for the rejection of the Bill, when speaking in the Committee of Ways and Means, answered a question which I put to hon. Members opposite as to how they would deal with the agricultural problem, by saying that he believed the best way of dealing with the agricultural problem in this country was to put the consumers in a position to pay for British beef. I have not quoted the hon. Member's exact words, but that was the sense of them. In that respect the National Government need not be ashamed, since owing to the improvement in trade and industry in this country there are coming back into industry large numbers of men who were previously unemployed, and we are to a marked degree assisting the general body of consumers in this country into a position in which they can spend more on food. I do not wish to weary the House with statistics to prove that, but it can readily be shown that, as compared with a few years ago, there is much more money in circulation owing to the improvement in industry which is evident in all parts of the country. I agree that there are certain areas which have not shared to the same exent, but the statement in general will stand examination.
I would also say that I agree that the farming industry in this country is not an exporting industry, but one which supplies the home market. It must be recognised, and it is recognised, that its success depends to a very great extent on the general level of prosperity among consumers in this country and on the level of activity of industry. That is a fact which is widely recognised and which hon. Members on the other side have not a monopoly of demonstrating. But when that is said, I do feel that it should be stressed that it is to the consumers' advantage in the long run that our livestock

industry should be maintained on a firm basis of efficiency and prosperity, and that is the Government's objective. The best assurance which the consumer can have that his needs will be met year in and year out at fair prices is that the industry should be on a firm basis. It is essential in the conditions of to-day that this industry should be safeguarded. We believe—and this is where I think the Government radically differ from hon. Members opposite—that if it were left to face unaided the full impact of world supplies in these difficult times, the consumer might gain some transitory advantage, but it would be no more than a transitory advantage, obtained only at the price of a breakdown in the agricultural system, which is so largely bound up with the livestock industry.
It may be argued—and I think the hon. Member for East Ham, South, has already referred to it in his previous speech—that the burden of these duties will fall wholly on the consumers. I think that criticism could easily be exaggerated, and I certainly would not agree that the whole amount of these duties is likely to be passed on to the consumers. There are various interests concerned before the ultimate consumer is reached. It is too early yet to draw any lasting or satisfactory impression of the effects of the duty, but it is my firm belief that the duty will not be by any means solely borne by the ultimate consumer. I feel that the step which we are proposing, which has already been agreed to in Committee and which is in the Bill presented to-day, is one which is wise policy on the part of the Government, which has to consider the interests of all parts of the community. If agriculture were to break down, it would involve permanent damage to our national economy which could not be easily retrieved, and I recommend the Bill with confidence to the House.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Barnes: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day six months."
We have now reached the stage of deciding who is to pay for the Measure to which the House has already given a Second Reading. I think that whatever uncertainty or confusion may have prevailed in regard to the previous Measure, it disappears on the issue of who is to


pay. I have no doubt that here we shall get a clear division on both sides of the House. Members of the National Government are always enthusiastically united when it is a question of putting their hands into the public purse. I notice that on this occasion, although hon. Members of the Liberal party below the Gangway supported the Second Reading of the previous Bill, they have announced their intention of voting against this particular proposal. I consider that the issue is very plain. If the Government consider that the livestock industry should receive assistance—if they are prepared to accept that responsibility—they should impose that burden upon the State in the form of a charge on the taxpayer. That method has decided advantages in financing schemes or proposals of this character. The taxpayer, through the Treasury, is much more insistent on economy, on efficiency, and on having value in return for the money.
Another advantage of the Treasury bearing a charge of this description in financing an aspect of public policy is that periodically this House has to accept responsibility for continuing payment of the subsidies. Those of us who are familiar with previous policies of subsidising agriculture and other industries have seen the advantages of Treasury control and Debates in the House, since public opinion gradually develops and becomes insistent that this type of policy is injurious to the interests of the nation as a whole in the long run. From the standpoint of public policy, we oppose this method by which the finances of the Livestock Industry Bill are to be raised.
Our second objection is that it is a pernicious system to tax directly one section of citizens for the advantage of another group. That becomes doubly indefensible when one is taxing a relatively, and in this sense an actually, poor section of the community, and giving the advantage to a section which is easily more well-to-do. To-night the Minister has again evaded the real facts of this Measure. Neither he nor his colleague, the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department, in the Debate on the Financial Resolution, dealt adequately with the issues raised, and when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade replies later on, I would like him to deal specifically with these points. Will he say

whether the method involved here is a defensible method to introduce into our fiscal system as related to commodity production within our internal economy? Will he say whether this method of raising taxation is equitable? Will he state whether it will accomplish the purpose for which it is designed, and, particularly in view of his past political attachments, will he say whether the foreigner or the British consumer will pay this particular duty? Will he state specifically whether this commodity is consumed by the poorest section of the people, or can he prove that it is consumed by the more well-to-do section?
In the discussion on the Financial Resolution, I drew attention to the fact that Sir John Orr, following his investigation, had pointed out that, taking the various purchasing groups in this country in relation to their meat consumption, the lowest purchasing group consumed only 20 ounces of meat per week, whereas the higher purchasing group consumed as much as 50 ounces a week—a very wide difference, especially when it is considered that the higher purchasing group enjoys a much wider range of foodstuffs. Still, we find this very large discrepancy and our contention is that the real solution of the problem of the agricultural industry in this country and particularly of the livestock branch, depends on expanding the consumption of meat by the masses of the people.
May I develop this contention by offering further circumstantial evidence? There are 4,500,000 persons in this country, representing 10 per cent. of the population, who can only afford, on the average, 4s. per head per week as their total expenditure on foodstuffs. It is grotesque and ludicrous to argue that a family which can spend only an average of 4s. a week on food is in a position to pay the price charged for English meat. It follows that they have to purchase frozen and chilled imported meat, and it is people of that type who will have to pay this duty. As further evidence, reference may be made to the fact that the consumption of meat, vegetables and eggs rises with income, and especially is this fact noted where working-class families have a higher rate of regular employment.
I do not think the Financial Secretary can claim on behalf of the Government any credit for the increase of employment


which has taken place since the Government have been in office. In the Budget Debates I was able to point out that expenditure on armaments in the main producing countries of the world in 1932 was, in round figures, 1£1,000,000,000. The corresponding expenditure of these countries in 1935–36 had increased to £2,500,000,000 or thereabouts. My contention is that if you throw into the productive markets of the world an additional expenditure, which is in the long run an uneconomic expenditure, of £1,500,000,000, it is bound to affect the cost of primary commodities. It is bound to start a general rise in retail and wholesale prices. For the time being it improves profits in industry, but there will come a time when we shall have to pay the price for that. If there should be any easing of the international situation such as everybody earnestly hopes for, and if that enormous expenditure is sharply restricted, you are bound to have a reversal of that policy and you will have to confront the possibly worse situation which will then emerge. Although the Government have had the advantage of that artificial prosperity I do not think they can claim any credit in the sound economic sense.
Another piece of corroborative evidence in support of my contention is revealed by an inquiry which took place in London recently with regard to the provision of milk for schoolchildren. Some 85,000 inquiries were sent out to the parents of children who were not taking the third of a pint of milk per day which had been made available, and of that number, 21,500 replies revealed that the parents in those cases could not afford the penny per day. When we are confronted with statistics of that description, even in London, it supports the general contention that that type of person is unable to purchase English meat. Therefore, it is upon that type of person that this duty will largely fall. I would also refer the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade to a statement made by his own chief at St. Ives on 2nd October, 1931. That was during a rather memorable period and it was the occasion of the right hon. Gentleman's famous declaration about the Post Office Savings Bank. On this particular question the President of the Board of Trade then stated:

I would not be in favour of an import duty on food. What we ought to cut off are imported luxuries.
Are we to take it that the right hon. Gentleman considers the frozen and chilled meat of the poorest people in this country a luxury? If not, why is he supporting a proposal of this description? The Secretary for Overseas Trade in the Debate on the Financial Resolution quoted the fact that in London only 30 per cent. of the meat supplies were home-killed or home produced; in Cardiff, 50 per cent., and on the North-East coast 58 per cent. I suggest that to quote percentages of meat consumed in various towns is not to reply to the main point, that it is the poor people who are compelled to consume this frozen and chilled meat. I have taken the opportunity in the meantime of getting the opinions of qualified persons in certain centres. I need only quote two. The reply which I received from Aberdare is as follows:
The main trouble in the meat trade in this district is that people have no money to buy either fresh or frozen meat and mostly have to go without it.
Although we are told that the consumption of home-produced meat on the North-East coast is 58 per cent., I received the following from Newcastle:
I beg to inform you that our experience is definitely that the people in the poorer localities are the principal purchasers of chilled and frozen imported meat. I regret I have no comparative figures available, but from an intimate knowledge of the quantities retailed in the shops in the poorer districts there is, undoubtedly, a very large demand for chilled and frozen imported meat.
The Government ought to make some reply to a definite statement of that character.
The next question to which I should like the Government Front Bench to reply is whether the foreigner will pay this tax or whether it will be paid by the British consumer. I will refer to an authoritative source from the Government's own Benches. The hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Major Dorman-Smith), in the Debate on the Financial Resolution, made this specific statement:
We"—
that is, the farmers, for the hon. Member is Chairman of the Farmers' Union—
have to buy a tremendous amount of goods which are taxed, taxes which are borne by


the farming industry alone."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1936; col. 2354, Vol. 318.]
He went on to point out that fertilisers bear a tax of £4 a ton; implements and machinery, 30 per cent.; shovels, spades, etc., 15 per cent.; mowers, ploughers, reapers and binders, 15 per cent.; and wire 33⅓ per cent. Will the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade explain why, if the taxes put on implements and the commodities used by the farmer are borne by the farming community alone, a tax put on something that the farmer grows is not by some miraculous means borne by the purchaser of the commodity, but by the foreigner overseas? If the Argentine exporter is going to pay the tax on the meat that he sells here, how is it that the foreigners who send fertilisers, wire and ploughs to this country do not pay the tax also? That is a point we have never had adequately explained.
The Financial Secretary stated that he did not consider this tax will be reflected in higher prices to the consumer. It is rather late in the day for the Government spokesman to make that declaration. We are fortunately in the position of having had experience of commodity prices with regard to those foodstuffs about which the Government have legislated. It is significant that the movement of prices of those foodstuffs is different from the general index level of food prices. It has been repeatedly stated in the Debate on the Livestock Bill that the general index figure for all foodstuffs in May, 1936, as compared with 1914, represents an increase of only 25 points. When, however, we take milk, potatoes and fish, three commodities in which the Government have indulged in their legislative activities, we find that milk is 73 per cent. above 1914, as against the general level of 25 per cent. for all foodstuffs. Potatoes are 65 per cent. above 1914 and fish 107 per cent. Therefore, before we can accept the declaration of the Government that their policy in this instance will not be reflected in increased prices, they must explain why the commodities they have already handled have gone up beyond the general level of food prices.
My final point against this Bill is that it continues the general policy of the National Government of transferring the

burden of taxation from the Income Taxpayer and direct taxpayer to the consumer of the commodity. If we take the general policy of the Government, of which this is merely a supplement, we find that Customs and Excise duties last year were up by £22,000,000. This year the Government expect to get another £14,000,000. Now we have this new meat levy of £3,500,000, which means that in two years the policy of the National Government has increased the indirect taxation of the consumer by roughly £39,000,000. Will this additional burden on the consumers restore prosperity to the agricultural industry? If we test the policy of the Government by results, as I did in the case of food prices, we find that at each successive stage that policy has not improved the position of the section of agriculture which the Government set out to assist. The right hon. Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert), speaking on the Financial Resolution on the 15th December last, stated that the number of agricultural workers in 1921 was 996,000 and that in 1935 it had declined to 783,000, a drop of 213,000. I would remind hon. Members opposite that the Conservative party has held power for II out of those 14 years. Therefore, if there has been that decline in the number of agricultural workers during that period they must accept full and complete responsibility for this state of British agriculture.
I am against this policy of subsidies, levies, quotas and restrictions on foodstuffs and all the rest of the paraphernalia to which vested interests are turning for the purpose of maintaining their profit system. It leads to all-round irritation. We can already see the perplexity of hon. Members opposite in trying to harmonise the interests of the Dominions producer with those of the home producer, and in this case with the interests of the Argentine producer, without injuring the British finance in the Argentine and the trade it represents in this country. In the long run it develops irritation and antagonism between the producer and the consumer. No policy in the long run can be more fatal to agriculture than to develop antagonism between the large industrial and urban population and the countryside. It sets the consumer against the taxpayer. You get differences between seller and buyer, and


conflicts between producer, manufacturer and distributor.
I suggest that the House has for many years now followed this policy of trying to impose on British agriculture a rigid system of control which is costing the taxpayer and the consumer more each year without solving any problems. The sooner this House and the country realise that the real solution of the agricultural problem in this country is a complete system of co-operative organisation from the field, through factory and slaughterhouse, to the consumers, the sooner we shall get British agriculture on the same basis of prosperity and continuity as countries like Denmark have represented in the past. The only way to get success is to turn agriculture on to the production of higher-priced commodities that can yield the standard of living which we demand. Therefore, I oppose this Bill, because it is inequitable and against the principles for which we on this side stand, and I hope the House will reject it and compel the Government to put the burden where it rightly should rest, and that is on the taxpayers of this country.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. Holdsworth: I beg to second the Amendment.
Whenever the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury introduces a Bill or gets up at that Box his manner is so charming that I always feel that it is almost criminal to oppose anything which he suggests, but to-night he has used one or two arguments in favour of this Bill which call for some reply. We are told that this duty is put on with a view to affording assistance to the livestock industry. He suggested that it was essential to pass this Bill to keep in being an efficient livestock industry. I want to deny that argument. For two or three years—I cannot say exactly how long—a subsidy has been paid to the livestock industry without there being any tax upon meat. Only to-day we have passed a Bill which, apart from anything that this Bill may do, gives a permanent subsidy to the livestock industry. It is arguable whether a subsidy should be given or not, but it cannot be contended that in order to give that subsidy it is essential to pass this Bill. There is another purpose of the Bill, described on page 1, which absolutely confirms what

I said on 15th December. It states that the Bill is brought forward in order to make
an addition to the public revenue.
On 15th December I described the Financial Resolution as being for the relief of the Treasury, and whatever may be the views of hon. Members as to the need of keeping in being a livestock industry, surely the meanest of all ways to do it is by putting a tax upon the consumers of the poorest grades of beef. I really detest the argument that in order to assist our farmers it is essential to put a burden on the backs of those who can afford only this cheaper kind of beef. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade smiling.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Dr. Burgin): May I be allowed to explain why? The poorest class of consumers in this country eat meat which comes in from the Empire and bears no duty either at present or in the future.

Mr. Holdsworth: The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that statement as an answer to my arguments. I do not think anybody can deny that if the people of this country had sufficient money they would buy neither Empire beef nor chilled beef, but English beef. I do not think that statement can be challenged for one moment. Supporters of the Government's policy are saying to the eater of Empire beef, which is of much inferior quality to the Argentine beef, "You shall get that beef without a tax, but if you want a bit of better beef you must pay a tax upon it." I repeat that it is scandalous to put forward this policy at the expense of the consumers of chilled beef. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman also used the argument that the consumer was pretty certain not to pay the whole of this duty, presupposing that the exporters of Argentine chilled beef would pay part or the whole of it. That is a strange argument. Time after time in the past five years the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stood at that Box saying there could be no recovery in international trade unless the prices of primary commodities were raised; but if the Argentine producer is to pay part of this duty it means that he will elect to take a lower price for his produce. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was right, then the right hon. and gallant


Gentleman must be wrong. If this duty is paid by the Argentine that country will have less money with which to pay interest on the debts owing to this country, or less money with which to buy the manufactured products of this country, and that reflection cannot be an incentive to Members to vote for this Bill. I wish to spend a moment or two in calling attention to the tremendous sum now being raised by food taxation in this country. The right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), speaking on 15th December, said:
Since 1921"—
I think that is a misprint. I think it should be 1931—
this Government and the preceding National Government have increased the taxation of food by over £20,000,000 per annum."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1936; col. 2390, Vol. 318.]
I do not want to take an oath about these figures, because I am speaking from memory, but I believe it is true to say that almost £30,000,000 per annum is now being raised by food taxation in this country, and remembering the past of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade I shall be interested to hear him justify raising almost £30,000,000 a year by food taxes. It is astonishing to go through the list. I do not know whether tea would be called a food or not, but it is looked upon as an essential thing by the poorer sections of the community. It is subject to taxation, and so are sugar, dried fruits, vegetables, butter, and bacon. Bacon is almost at a prohibitive price through the policy of this Government, which is paying the exporter of bacon twice as much money as we need have paid him, or almost twice as much, in order to give an advantage to one-fourth of the suppliers of the consumers of bacon in this country. We have done it in the dearest way. Wheat has been made dearer, and milk is almost at a prohibitive price. In Bradford we pay 2s. 4d. per gallon for milk; we pay 3½d. for a pint of milk. I suggest that all this additional taxation on food is making things almost unbearable for the poorer sections of the community.
Further, this additional taxation comes at a time when food prices are rising. There can be no denial of that. I was interested to see that last week's figure for food prices was said to have gone up

only about three points. I am certain that there is a real and serious increase in the price of food. Potatoes are getting almost prohibitive in price, the price is jumping up almost every week. One thing after another on which the people have to depend for their sustenance is being put out of their reach. I believe that everyone in the House is agreed about there being under-nourishment. I do not say that I accept all the figures of Sir John Orr, I am not competent to say whether every figure is correct of not, but I can say without fear of challenge that there are millions of people in this country who are under-nourished. Not only in this House but in almost every Parliament of the world there seems to be a conspiracy against the goodness of Nature.
I shall never forget when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade told me on one occasion in the last Parliament that I needed to learn a new economy—the economics of glut. My reply was, and still is, that I am perfectly willing to begin a new education when the hon. Gentleman can tell me that everybody in this country has sufficient. The time to talk about glut is when it is proved that everybody has enough to go on with. The policy of food restriction and taxation is insane. It is almost—I say this reverently—a crime against the Deity to put restrictions upon the essentials of life. Another thing always strikes me as contradictory. We have every reason to be proud in this country of the amount which is spent on social services, but what is the good of spending money on health services to patch up people who have broken down, and yet to deny them the right to spend their money upon getting the essentials of life? It seems to be the dearest way of doing it. It would be far better if we left the money to fructify in the pockets of the people, who would choose for themselves the dietary that they think they need, and they would choose not less but more things, if they had the money with which to buy them.
Time after time I have referred to the subject in this House, and I repeat what I have said. I have had personal experience in my younger days, and I know what I am talking about. The woman, on Saturday night, does not say how many pounds of beef she is going to buy.


She does not begin by assessing the needs of the family. What she does is to look at her pocket and say to herself, "I have so many shillings left; what will that buy? She does not purchase according to need, but according to the power of her pocket, and every farthing of taxation that is put on makes it more difficult for that woman to do her shopping. It is usually a woman, at least in the North, who does the buying, in order to provide the essential health-giving food for her people, who have spent all their time working in order to enjoy the necessaries of life.
I was amazed that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should try to convince the House that the Bill is in the interests of the consumers. How can it be in the interests of the consumers to make things dearer for them by deliberate legislation, and then—it is almost pulling their legs—to tell them, "This is all for your advantage"? I have heard nothing to substantiate that statement. I said at the beginning that I made a long speech on this subject on 15th December. I shall not reiterate all the statements I then made, but I shall finish as I began by saying that this is not a Bill to help the livestock industry. We did that in the Bill which we passed at half-past seven. This is a Bill to relieve the Treasury at the expense of the consumers of imported beef. I do not mind how much the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade smiles. I do not believe there is any way of getting over my argument. Even those who want to see a successful livestock industry tell the Government that this is not the way to do it. Some reference was made to the necessity of relieving Income Tax payers; I say deliberately, although it is no joy to me to pay Income Tax, that I honestly prefer to pay a little more tax towards relieving the livestock industry, if that be necessary, than help to place an added burden upon those least able to bear it.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. H. Haslam: The argument of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House, and that of the hon. Member who preceded him, are based upon the assumption that this tax on foreign meat will fall entirely upon the consumer. The hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) certainly said that possibly a very small part would fall

upon the producers. Generally speaking, his argument was based upon the contention that this Measure was taxing the consumers of the article, and that the consumers were very poor people. Neither hon. Member took the trouble to give the reasons on which that assumption was based. They did not give any instances, and I suggest to them that they have failed to study the fiscal history of this country during the last five years, when we have seen taxes on manufactured products without those taxes having raised the price of the articles to the consumers.
As an agricultural Member, I freely concede that it is not to the interest of the farming community to place burdens upon the poorest of the poor, but I do not believe that this small tax is other than what is described as a revenue-producing duty. Let me give one or two arguments to show where the taxation will fall. When this duty was first proposed to the House a month ago, we were told by those who took part in the negotiations that the representatives of Argentina asserted during the negotiations that the tax was going to fall upon the Argentine producer and negotiations were conducted on that basis. I think they were right. Argentina had a good deal of basis to go on in saying that the taxation would fall upon them. While on this subject, I should like to mention something which I have seen in the Press, namely, that the Argentine Government have agreed to give the benefit of a subsidy to the producers in the Argentine on account of the tax which they suppose will fall upon the Argentine producers.
In that connection, I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to say, when he replies, whether such action by the Argentine Government of subsidising their producers, comes within the ambit of the Agreement. In any case I would venture to suggest, to those hon. Members who are specially representing in this House the point of view of the consumers, that, if the Argentine Government is going to pay the producers of chilled meat £1,000,000 a year in order to help on production and pay the tax, and if the British Government is going to give the British producers £5,000,000 a year, the consumer in this country is in a somewhat favoured position. Here we have two Governments subsidising meat


production. Who is going to get the benefit? It seems to me that the consumer must get the benefit. £6,000,000 a year is to be paid, £1,000,000 in the Argentine and £5,000,000 here, and, therefore, I think that the consumer need not view this small tax with any alarm.
Let me turn to the larger argument, as to whether the policy of the National Government in supporting agricultural production by means of import duties, by means of subsidies or bounties, by means, when required, of restrictions on foreign supplies when those foreign supplies have proved to be knocking the bottom out of the market, is justified or not. I would ask hon. Members opposite what would have been the effect on British agriculture if no such policy had been followed, if none of these things had been done? As an agricultural Member I can assert that land would have gone out of cultivation in the most wholesale manner, that the countryside would have become depopulated, and that the depletion of the number of farm workers, instead of its going down from 900,000 to 780,000, would have been colossal. In these bad years, with unemployment in the towns at record figures, there would have been a steady stream of men and women from the countryside into the towns seeking employment.
If we take the long view, and I am endeavouring to put the long view now, would a temporary cheapness resulting from our taking in foreign-produced food at prices less than the cost of production have really benefited the British consumer? I submit that the price paid for such a temporary cheapness—the destruction of British agriculture—would have descended upon the heads of consumers as a terrible disaster. Now we are enjoying a period of peace and peaceful expansion, but there is a possibility, almost, of war, and I submit that, in view of the possibility that the people of this country might simply not have food, it would be absolute madness to allow our agricultural production to fall. Our agricultural production now is at a lower level than is compatible with national safety in time of war. Therefore I support such a tax as this, which I regard as no more than a revenue duty, and I support the policy of the Government

in these matters, as I have done all the way through during the last five years. In summing up this long view I say there can be no doubt that agriculture would have suffered a decline which would have appalled any hon. Member opposite, had not the Government adopted a strong policy and passed Measures to maintain production on the countryside.
I notice that hon. Members opposite seem to be against all these Measures. The Mover of the Amendment said he was completely against proceeding by the taxation of foreign food; he said that he would much rather have had the whole subsidy borne by the taxpayer—that that would be much fairer. The hon. Member for South Bradford said exactly the same thing. Indeed, he even went so far as to say he would be pleased to pay an additional Income Tax. I am not in the secrets of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I expect it is quite possible that he may have to do that in any case. That was the argument of hon. Members opposite—that they would sooner have a subsidy which fell on the taxpayer than place a duty on imported food. During all these years the Government have been proposing subsidies, but hon. Members opposite have not supported them. Subsidies have been proposed as alternatives to import duties, but did hon. Members opposite go into the Lobby with the Government on those occasions? Not a bit of it; they steadily opposed every subsidy, just as they opposed the subsidy which was proposed earlier to-day. Therefore, I suggest that hon. Members opposite are inconsistent in these matters.
I would like now to refer to the question of the consumption of English and foreign meat. I have no doubt that hon. Members are justified in saying that the poorer classes of the community purchase principally foreign meat, but that is not true of all. A great number of people in all ranks of society prefer homegrown meat. In fact, I think the Mover of the Amendment stated that on the North-East Coast something like 58 per cent, of the meat consumed was homegrown. That is a good large figure, and it shows that a very large number of working people in that part of the world prefer English to foreign meat. [HON. MEMBERS: "They all do."] It shows that a great many people in that part of


the world have the sense to pay a little more for a better article. Even the poorest of the poor will prefer to do so, because they find from practical experience that it is better to have a little less of English meat than a larger quantity of foreign chilled or foreign frozen meat. For my part, I think it is very important that those of us who have any power or influence should do our utmost to encourage the attitude of mind that the homegrown article is really worth the money, as opposed to the foreign or the frozen. We in agriculture all know that the very best thing that can happen to us is that the miners should be prosperous.
The miner, who has to do hard muscular work, knows that one of the best things he can consume to enable him to do it, is good English meat. I believe they realise that in Scotland perhaps more than we do. Why not, then, endeavour to encourage the consumption of English meat? I am not going to argue that this very small duty will raise the price, because I do not believe it for a moment. But I hope that the policy of the Government will result in a larger amount of British home-grown meat and rather less of foreign. I believe that that will be good for the health of the people as well as for the agricultural industry. In view of the arguments that I have put before the House, I support the policy of the Government.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Woods: The hon. Member's arguments might or might not be valid in support of the Bill that was passed earlier in the day, but he has not said a single word that applies to the Bill that is before us now. Although it is linked up with the other Bill, because it deals with a common trade, it has nothing in common with that Bill. The Government have pledged themselves to provide a subsidy to the beef-producing section of the community, amounting to £5,000,000. That may or may not help agriculture. What we are dealing with now is the question, who is to pay? The Government have been paying rather more than £2,000,000 as a temporary subsidy. Now they are going to pay £5,000,000 and, according to the estimate of the Financial Secretary, this Measure will bring additional revenue into the Treasury of £3,000,000 plus, and the vital issue is whether it is moral or equitable that the

section of the community which will have to foot the bill should pay it exclusively.
It seems to me that the discussion has been perfectly sound in rotating round the point as to who will pay. The old idea that the foreigner pays has been trotted out by the Mover of the Bill and by the last speaker. The last speaker even suggested that the Argentine Government, realising that their producers will presumably have to pay £3,000,000, are going to give them £1,000,000 to begin with. I am surprised at an hon. Member who speaks on behalf of an agricultural constituency talking as though agriculture in any part of the world is flourishing at present. It is quite unfair to our farming community, and I do not think it flatters the Government, to give them the impression that the agricultural industry in any part of the world is really a flourishing concern. It is not.

Mr. Haslam: I do not think I made any statement at all that the farming community in the Argentine was flourishing.

Mr. Woods: If they are not flourishing, you are making their hardship even worse and trying to stabilise British agriculture at the expense of Argentine agriculture, and the sooner farmers here and all over the world begin to think in terms of world agriculture the healthier it will be and the better perspective we shall get of its problems. But the problem here is: Who pays? The Financial Secretary gave us a vague hope that somehow the Argentine or other producers would pay, but he gave us no data as to how that was to be achieved. We know only too well how easy it is to juggle with figures and to take one article where in face of a fall in price an additional tax has not been noticed. But this £3,000,000 will not come out of the air. Some one has got to pay it, and if the Argentine producers are in such sore straits that they have to go to their Government and ask for assistance, it is obvious that they are not in a position to pay this £3,000,000.
It might be argued that the large-scale cattle industry of the Argentine is so profitable that it can easily pay this out of its profits. I do not think they are likely people to make a gift of £2,000,000 to the British public. A moral and spiritual revolution would be needed before you could get big capital in the


modern world to make a gift of £2,000,000 to the people of any country. Experience will prove that this tax will fall upon the people who consume the commodity, and for that reason it is quite unwise to embody in permanent legislation such a method of taxation as this. The whole argument used by the Mover of the Bill and in the subsequent discussion has hedged round the question, Who will pay? If experience proves that the burden will fall upon the consuming community, it would seem that there is a case for doing away with this form of raising the necessary £3,000,000, but when once this is on the Statute Book, whatever our experience, and whoever pays, this will remain the method of taxation. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade interjected the remark that poor people do not eat this class of meat. That means that they neither eat frozen nor chilled beef.

Dr. Burgin: No, that is not what it means. It means that statistics of the consumption of meat by the poorest classes of people show that something like three-quarters of all the meat that they eat is Empire produced, bearing no duty in the past, in the present or in the future.

Mr. Woods: Then who eats the other quarter? I have been chairman of the butchery department of a very large organisation, and we actually separated the foreign and Empire from the English pieces. We immediately found that there was objection to that because there are heaps of poor people who are very respectable and look upon their poverty as a disgrace and try to shield it from the world, and they complained that, because of their poverty, they had to buy imported meat and did not like having to go into a separate shop where it would be seen by all who passed that they were having to eat this kind of meat. Whatever the Minister's data may be, when it comes to serving behind the counter, the people who buy this meat are those who cannot in the ordinary course afford English meat. There is no doubt whatever about it, and I am surprised at any one representing the Government making a fuss about it, because we have argued the question of feeding the troops on British meat, and the argument has been that the Government could not afford it.
I had the experience of speaking in a market place at an actual auction of beef. A supporter of the National Government, in one of his strongest arguments before that community, said that he was in favour of British beef for the British troops. We have heard nothing more about it. If the Government really desire to help agriculture and would give the home producers that order for the Army it would cause a substantial increase in the production of British beef. Even the Government, in order to economise, purchase the other kind of beef. They may argue, as they argued with regard to margarine, that it is better for the troops. Nobody believes it, and they know that, athough it may be all right for platform work, it is not good enough for wholesale consumption.
Let me mention a few of the classes of people who will have to pay their contribution towards this £3,000,000. We can take them in different groups. In the first place, we have the whole of the old age pensioners of this country whose income is 10s. per head per week. Everybody in this House is sympathetic towards the old age pensioners, the overwhelming majority of whom have given the greater part of their lives to the service of the community. In their old age they do not want a lot, but all of us would desire that the little which they require should be the best that the community can give them. Old age pensioners when they eat meat will, because they are compelled to buy the cheapest kind, have the privilege of subsidising British agriculture. It is scandalous. Then there are the unemployed. We talk very often in this House as if the unemployed were a sort of theoretical abstraction existing in places called distressed or Special Areas. They are human beings like ourselves, who grow hungry and need food, and who have children and desire that they should grow up and have an opportunity of getting decent employment and becoming a credit to their country. They have to feed those children upon a miserable income. They are kept at the barest minimum by a Government who are anxious to be generous to agriculture. The only meat they will be able to buy will be imported, chilled or frozen.
It is all very well for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade to say that 75 per cent. of what they eat is


Empire meat, but 25 per cent. of what they eat is Argentine meat. If there is 100 per cent. of imported meat, 25 per cent. roughly will represent foreign meat and will be covered by this Bill. If no meat comes in under this Bill, there will be no £3,000,000. Somebody will have to pay the £3,000,000. Then there are the agricultural labourers themselves. The standard of wages in agriculture at the present time is well known in this House and throughout the country, and I would say, in answer to the hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Haslam), why they are so anxious to leave the industry if they can get employment in other industries. The only reason is the appallingly low wages which are paid to the actual producers of British beef and British corn. They are the people who do the work. I can assure the occupants of the Front Bench opposite that the most regular customers at the imported meat shops throughout the country are the agricultural community. The very people who produce the British beef of which we boast are compelled, because of their poverty, to buy the imported commodity.
You are saying to those who are giving their services towards building up this great industry, which you say is so necessary in the event of war and all the rest of it, "All we can do for you is to give you 30s., 35s. or 38s. a week, upon which you can bring up your family." You are insulting them, and the wife of any agricultural worker will tell you that that sort of thing can only be told to someone who is fit for a lunatic asylum. They know that if they are to have British beef, they must have higher wages. If they buy any meat at all, it has to be imported meat. The average agricultural labourer's wife is not tremendously concerned where the meat comes from so long as it is the best that her money can buy, and, generally speaking, the Argentine product is among the best qualities of imported beef we eat. The agricultural labourer is to be asked to pay an additional amount in order to help to make agriculture a success. It is utterly immoral.
It has been argued that the Bill which has been read a Second time to-day, and this additional help by the Treasury, will help agriculture and mean increased employment. Nothing can be further from the truth. If, as a result of these Measures,

there is an expansion of the fat stock industry in this country, it will follow as night the day, that there will be a diminution in the employment of agricultural labourers. The more land goes out of cultivation and is put down to grass, the less will be the actual employment. It always has been so, and will continue to be so. It will be argued by some who know very little about it, that all stock now are hand fed and are not put out to grass. That is sheer nonsense. Stall feeding actually demands very little labour indeed. A good deal of the diminution in agricultural employment in recent years has been due to the expansion of the dairying industry. Dairy farming needs less labour than arable farming. Anybody who knows anything at all about agriculture is aware that stock raising means far less labour even than dairy farming, so that the agricultural labourers will not have increased employment, but increased unemployment.
There is another aspect of this system of taxation which has been emphasised on Liberal platforms, and it is so profoundly true that we should continue to emphasise it. It is not only an immoral and inequitable taxation, putting upon particular sections of the community what should be a national burden, but also an uneconomic raising of taxation. It will be a most costly method of collecting it. Every butcher throughout the length and breadth of the country who handles this commodity will be a tax collector. You will not pay him yourselves. He will not be officially appointed. You are to leave the customers the honour of paying him the additional duty. In a commodity like imported beef there is rather an excessive shrinkage or wastage. I am not speaking here without my book, because I have had experience, as many Members on these benches and on the benches opposite know. No shopkeeper when dealing with commodities ever says "I am paying 4d. for the commodity and I am paying 1d. or 1½d in tax. I will only put the profit on the 4d. I am paying for the commodity." He has to put the margin on the whole of his capital costs and it is necessary to add that 25 per cent., 33 per cent. or whatever the cost may be, to cover wastage and all his other expenses.
By this system of taxation in the long run you are adding something in the region of a further £1,000,000 to the


burden on a specific section of the consumers of this country. If these arguments can be refuted I should be only too glad, because I am interested in the consumers of this country. If we can get any guidance from the Government Benches as to how the consumers can be saved from unnecessary burdens we shall be the first to listen with all our attention and to profit accordingly. But until we have an indication that these are not the facts we shall oppose this Bill.

9.26 p.m.

Major Braithwaite: We have just listened to a violent partisan speech. If the hon. Member had been discussing the coal mining industry and he had found that coal was coming into this country to the detriment of his own constituents he would be the first to get up and say, "This is a thing we should not allow." For my part, I say to the Parliamentary Secretary that I regard this Bill as going only half way. I want to see a protective duty put on meat coming into this country, so as to give the farmers a chance. It is no good beating about the bush. The Government have promised the farmers substantial provision for making their industry pay. I thought that they would have been honest and shown what that policy was. But these are mere aggravating duties which neither accomplish their end nor satisfy the people whom they are designed to protect. If we had been given a duty which would have filled the gap between the cost of production of meat and the price at which Argentine meat is being sold, that would have been a substantial help, but this duty is neither sufficient to fill the gap nor to offer a semblance of protection.
This principle of importing beef from the Argentine is a relic from the War. The English farmer during the War gave the best of his stock and had to slaughter more of the herds of the country than he would have done in ordinary circumstances. In view of that, British agriculture emerged from the War with sadly depleted herds, and the Argentine saw that it was quite a practicable proposition to put more and more meat into this country. With the advent of modern science and refrigerator ships, they have been able, with the climatic conditions of their country—and it is possible there to raise a steer and bring it to the point of killing in 16 months, instead of a

certain two years here—to produce beef at a price much lower than is possible here. There is no argument that it is good meat which comes from the Argentine, and it can be produced at a cheaper price. But we have to face the effect this will have on the general balance of agriculture. We have seen the dislocation of agriculture because of the conditions in the livestock industry. We have seen people entering the milk trade, the overflooding of markets and the downward trend of prices.
Let us be perfectly frank and honest. Do the Government want the livestock industry to continue? Because it cannot continue if it is not a profitable industry. The farmers have lost the bulk of their capital in unremunerative prices, and unless we can have a position where farmers can make the industry pay we are going to lose, as the Minister of Agriculture said, three-fifths of the total income of the farming community. This miserable duty of ¾d. a lb. on Argentine beef is neither one thing nor the other. It is entirely unsatisfactory. It gives no protection. I am hoping that the Government will see their way in Committee to increase this ¾d. a lb. and make it at least id. That, I believe, would fill the gap between the cost of production and the market prices which the farmer has to face at present. It would be rendering the agricultural community, if they could do that, a real service. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Woods) suggested that old age pensioners were going to pay the increased prices. They are not the people who eat Argentine beef.

Mr. Woods: They are not eating any meat at all.

Major Braithwaite: Yes, they are eating Empire meat, which is cheaper than Argentine meat, and in many cases they are eating English meat. But if old age pensions are inadequate to buy meat, it is the duty of this House to put them right, and not to throw the burden on the farming community.

Mr. Woods: I dealt with the subsidy when the hon. and gallant Member was not present. I agree with him that agriculture must be helped. It was only a question of taxation that I raised.

Major Braithwaite: The suggestion was made that the people who are to pay this ¾d. a lb. were the unemployed, old


age pensioners and agricultural labourers. I have one of the largest agricultural constituencies in this country—the third largest, I believe—and I have as fine a body of agricultural labourers in my constituency as can be found anywhere. I discussed this matter with them—I do not discuss these things only with the farmers and landlords—and they asked me, "Why do you not protect our industry against foreign imports and give us a chance to get a better wage? What opportunity will there be if you allow this market to be open to the unrestricted competition of low wages in other countries?" I am satisfied that no agricultural labourer in my constituency or his wife would object to paying a little more if it gave a better chance to British agriculture. If the unemployed cannot afford meat, it is the duty of this House to put that situation right by giving them more so that they can, and not bring it down to the point of depressing a vital basic industry, for this industry still remains the largest and greatest labour-employing industry in this island. There is no excuse for any section of the community being used as a weapon to depress an industry. You cannot keep an industry going without profits. If there is an uneconomic level of prices, measures should be designed to correct that.
I shall vote for the Bill. In spite of the sparseness and frugality of the gifts which it offers to agriculture, it opens up a new principle for this Government. We have to make up our minds, if British agriculture is to be saved, that agriculture is entitled to exactly the same protection that we are prepared to give to other industries. I hope that this small amount of duty will so encourage the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade that they will take their courage in their hands and impose proper duties later. There is no dearth of knowledge in our agricultural community. If they are given the opportunity they can farm as well as, and probably better than, anyone in the world. There is no danger of the agricultural community exploiting the people of this country by high prices if they are given the opportunity of producing in quantity. I thank the Government sincerely, even after the criticism that I have made, in having made a satisfactory start on the subject of food duties, and I hope that the present duty

will prove so satisfactory, and have so little of the ill effects feared by hon. Members opposite, that they will be encouraged at a later time to come along and say, "We will give our own people, in our own country, the first chance of our own markets." I am certain that the results will make for employment, happiness and contentment in the homes of our people.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. David Adams: The House will have noticed the solicitude with which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade endeavoured to prove that only a small amount of the meat to be taxed by this Bill is consumed by the poorer sections of the community. Why was he so solicitous? Because he was bound to admit that the tax would be borne by the consumer. Otherwise, why trouble as to what class of food the poorer sections of the community consume. We on this side of the House do not agree with the statement he made that Empire meat is consumed by the poorer people. Empire meat in the opinion of the working classes is inferior in quality—that has been admitted in this House—and Argentine chilled or frozen meat is superior. It is for that reason that the poorer people will make the sacrifice of spending a little extra upon Argentine meat as against Colonial meat. It is that class who will be hit by the new duties.
We have gone back in the outlook of the present Government to the days of the hungry 'forties. From now onwards we are to have a succession of definite, deliberate taxes upon the food of the people. The Government have succeeded in that direction fairly well so far, and the cost of our foodstuffs has risen steadily. In 1932 the price was 25 per cent. above the pre-war level; in 1935 it had risen to 31 per cent. and in November, 1936, 36 per cent. was the figure at which foodstuffs stood above the prewar price. That increase is very serious for the poorer section of the community. It means that since 1934, in a world which is offering foodstuffs of every description at lower levels than ever before, the poorer sections of the community are being deprived of the advantage of world production, and that on every pound's worth of food that the working classes consume the value is 1s. less through additional taxation.
The hon. Member who spoke last said that these were trivial duties. It may be a trivial matter for the farmer, the putting on of a duty of ¾d. a lb., but a section of that meat is taxed as high as 20 per cent. ad valorem duty on the price, and that is borne by those who consume the meat. Why do the Government deliberately state that sweetbreads required for insulin will bear no taxation? If the foreigner pays the tax, why relieve him of that tax? It is perfectly clear that the consumer in this country pays the tax. Since this Government and the previous Government came into office and we have changed from the Free Trade system to a system of tariffs, the prices of commodities of all sorts have been raised systematically and automatically, and to a greater extent than the actual amount of the tax. I anticipate that in the counties of Durham and Northumberland the additional charge for Argentine meat when the duty operates will not be ¾d. but more like 1¾d. There will be an additional profit taken upon the duty itself.
If it were possible, we are anxious to defeat this proposal. The unemployed and those in employment have no means of defence against the increased cost of living. Their wages are fixed. We have in County Durham many thousands of people who are in receipt of less than £2 per week. In Durham the subsistence men working in the mines receive £2 0s. 8½d., which includes an allowance of 5s. 6d. for house and coal, but there are very large numbers who do not receive the house and coal allowance, and they have to live in council houses and pay rents of from 10s. to 12s. a week. It will be seen that these people are below the poverty line and are not able to pay any additional cost for foodstuffs. It is an interesting fact that, so poverty stricken are large numbers of the people I represent, that the local authorities are supplying free milk not merely to nursing and expectant mothers and children but to every member of certain families. The local authorities know that the free milk supply is helping to relieve the low standard of life to which many of these people are driven at the present time.
We rightly contend, and it is certainly indisputable, that if you take steps to

make more difficult the export of foodstuffs—as the Government are doing under powers given in previous Acts and as they will under this Bill—from the Argentine and other food-producing countries, those countries in the very nature of things will take less of our goods.
The Prime Minister, and particularly the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the latter of whom, I think, was really the author of the system of taxation under which the country suffers to-day, and but for which we should have been altogether more prosperous than at the present time, are both very loud in their declarations that nothing is more desirable than the reduction of tariffs, quotas, and restrictions such as those which we are about to impose by this Bill. Members opposite must not be surprised if those who are hit by this taxation are resentful of our attitude, and I make bold to say that probably the prime cause of the unrest in Europe today is the taxation which the Government have imposed upon imports into this country. There is deep resentment on the Continent, which is not permitted to enter the newspapers of this country. Well may the Prime Minister, particularly in his declarations which are intended for consumption abroad, declare that one of the desirable things is the reduction of such international obstacles to the flow of trade.
When the new currency control agreement between France, the United States, and Great Britain was made, the Treasury issued a statement
That the participating Governments attach the greatest importance to action being taken without delay to relax progressively the present system of quotas and exchange controls with a view to their abolition.
What steps have the Government taken to honour that statement, which everyone who trades with Great Britain must have believed was seriously meant and would be honoured when the opportunity occurred? It has not been, and I suppose that as long as the present Government exist it will not be, honoured. I venture upon the prediction that the Government are now proceeding and will continue with these measures for the progressive taxation of the food of the people. They have the power to do it, they are doing it to-day, and this will be


followed in due course by other steps. As a result we shall be certain that in the course of time, when the opportunity occurs, the electorate of this country will use that taxation as the prime weapon for expelling them from office; and it may be long before they return again.

9.49 p.m.

Mr. J. Rathbone: I am grateful for this opportunity of making what I hope will be the shortest speech made to-day. I would like to put a very different point of view from that which has come from the benches opposite. All the speakers from those benches have looked upon this ¾d. in the pound purely from the point of view of taxation and have avoided any idea that it could possibly afford any protection to agriculture. Various other industries—the steel industry, in particular—have reaped enormous benefits from protection, and the result has been that hundreds of thousands of people have got back their jobs. Is it too much to ask that agriculture should have a little share in the protection that is being dealt round? From the point of view of taxation, a lot has been said about making food dearer. Cheapness is not everything to go for in this world. After all, it is better surely, instead of paying, say, 6d. for a product with only 8d. in your pocket, which leaves you 2d. only, to have to pay 8d. for the same product with is, in your pocket, leaving 4d. over, and that is precisely what the Government have tried to do. It is precisely that idea of getting more money into the pockets of the people, of getting them back their work, and surely nobody will deny that wages are rising all along the line. Even to the agricultural labourer wages have risen.
Furthermore it has been suggested on the other side that it was the consumer who would have to pay, and continually on this side that it was not the consumer who would have to pay. Attention was called to what the National Farmers' Union said, to the effect that the farmer had to pay the tax on fertilisers, spades, and so on, but surely it is largely a question of how much competition there is abroad to gain our markets. Where there is great competition for our markets, where our markets are really wanted abroad, then you have a greater readiness abroad to

make the sacrifice and to pay the duty. Where, on the other hand, the same article can be got here just as easily and at the same time there is not a terrific rush in the British market, naturally the foreign producer can afford to charge the extra which is involved in the duty.
The suggestion was made by one hon. Member opposite that increased beef production would cause a greater acreage of grass and that that would cause further unemployment in the agricultural industry. I was surprised to hear that suggestion. I do not set myself up as the expert that he evidently is, but I was under the impression that one of the chief troubles of agriculture to-day was that everybody was going into the dairying industry, and that if some of those now in that industry went into the beef industry, there would be less grass and not more, and there would be more employment and more hands would be taken on. That was my impression, but perhaps I was wrong.
There is one other point that I want to deal with, and that is the point made by one hon. Member to the effect that there were thousands of people who could not pay the penny per day for cheap milk in schools, and yet from the same side of the House a mere few hours later there comes the statement that poor people are prepared to make the sacrifice to get the better quality Argentine beef instead of the cheaper quality Empire beef. Those two remarks are hard to reconcile. No, Sir, I look upon this partly, but not altogether, as a revenue-producing Measure. I look upon it as something which is producing just a little bit of protection for agriculture. I do not say that it is enough, and I think the general trend of speeches made on this side shows that it is not enough, but it is a step in the right direction, and for that reason it will receive my support.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Paling: The levy proposed in this Bill is for the purpose of making a contribution towards the £5,000,000 to be paid as a subsidy to the producers of beef in this country. I have said before in this House, and I suppose I shall say it again if I stop here long enough, that I am surprised yet at the shameless begging, bullying, threatening, and cajoling for pocket money that go on particularly by representatives of agricultural interests.


We have had two days on this business and everybody representing an agricultural constituency who has spoken has begged for more money. In so far as they have had anything to say, it has been to the effect that the money is not enough, they hope that the Government will give them more and in the meantime they will use every endeavour to compel the Government to give them more. I was reading to-day what Lord Allendale said addressing the Farmers' Union at a dinner in Birmingham yesterday. He said:
I was brought up by my father on the old dictum 'Hands off agriculture, we do not want any interference from Whitehall.' It is a good one, and I only wish it could be carried out in these days.
In 1922 when we were passing legislation dealing with industry, agriculture included, one of the main arguments which hon. Members opposite used was, "Let us alone. We do not want Whitehall to interfere with us." There has been a change in their tone since then. Nearly every industry has come down to this House begging, and bullying and threatening for more public money to help it. There was, I am told, an old tradition in this House that when any legislation was being passed which would financially benefit any particular Member it was the custom for him neither to speak nor vote. If there was such a tradition it has gone. There is no hesitation now in speaking and voting. As a matter of fact, hon. Members have gone to the other extreme and threatened the Government that if they do not get more than they have been promised they will vote against them and turn them out. The fact that this Government has had such a large recourse to the subsidy policy has probably helped and made people ask for more public money in this shameless manner. I think we are building up by these subsidies a vested interest which will take a tremendous amount of breaking down at some future time. We seem to be teaching the agricultural industry, and other industries as well, to rest upon subsidies rather than upon their own energies and initiative.
The hon. and gallant Member for Newark (Marquess of Titchfield) who comes of a good old family, was pleased that there were £5,000,000 going to the

farmers and landlords. He was thankful for the amount his constituents are going to receive. The hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) is always frank about this business. He was proud that the industry was going to get £5,000,000. But he wants more. He started by inquiring whether he was likely to get more if he spoke on a sugary note rather than on a vinegary note, and then decided that he would speak in sugary accents. That is how hon. Members opposite talk when they want to get public money. The hon. Member for Leominster drew a sad picture of the poverty in the agricultural industry and represented the poor farmer as being so hard hit that he had to come to the Government and beg for bread and milk. Then he said that the only thing they got from the Government was just bread, but hoped that in the near future they would get much better food in the shape of increased subsidy on foodstuffs.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: What I said was that I hoped we should get some protective food.

Mr. Paling: Yes, in the shape of more subsidy. It amounts to the same thing. But when the hon. Member talks about the poverty of the industry I turn to a little paper, issued by the agricultural workers, which each month publishes a list of the wills of farmers and landlords who have died; the people who come to this House in the words of the hon. Member and ask for bread and milk. The first name in the list this month is a well-known landowner who died leaving £476,000. Not much reason there to ask for bread and milk. There are 21 of them in this list, and the average that has been left is about £50,000 each. This hardly squares with the poverty about which we have heard so much.

Mr. Rathbone: Is it suggested that that sum was in each case made out of the land?

Mr. Paling: I am merely saying that there is this list of landowners and farmers. Such a list is given every month. Evidently some of the landlords and farmers who are asking for public money are doing very well indeed and are not nearly so badly off as some people who are on the means test, which


hon. Members opposite always support. There is no means test in this subsidy. The first man who died worth nearly half a million pounds would get his share of the subsidy without any inquiry as to how much he was worth. Hon. Members opposite when dealing with the means test in the future should have more regard for those under the means test, especially when they so lavishly hand out money to their own friends. There is an old saying that a Tory Government always looks after its friends. No Government has ever looked after its friends like the last National Government and the present Government.

Sir Edward Campbell: I suggest that a Socialist Government would have no friends to look after.

Mr. Paling: Wait and see. If we look after our friends half as well as the Tory Government look after their friends the people of this country will not have any trouble. The farming community has always been Tory in its outlook and this Government has outbid any Government for a century in handing out money to its friends, the landlords and farmers. Great complaint has been made as to the plight of the farming industry, but no industry has ever been treated so generously. Look at the amount of money which has been paid to the industry in the last few years. Having regard to the great amount paid in direct subsidies one can only be impressed that poverty should exist in the industry.
It seems to indicate that all the actions of the last Government and of this Government, all the subsidies which have been paid to the industry, have been useless for making it prosperous. Last year £3,800,000 was paid in regard to fat cattle, and the sum is to be increased now by nearly £1,500,000. The following amounts were also paid: Wheat, £6,300,000; milk, manufacturing, £1,200,000; milk in schools, L500,000; sugar subsidy, £2,700,000; Revenue rebate, £2,900,000. That leaves out of account the fact that the industry pays no rates, and I am told that it is calculated that if the industry paid rates, it would account for another £15,000,000. Even then I am leaving out of account import duties, and so on, which have benefited the industry indirectly. In spite of all this assistance, we are told again and again that the industry languishes

and remains in a terrible state of depression. It appears at any rate that the policy of the Government is not succeeding in bringing prosperity back to the industry.
There is another question I would like to raise. The cattle subsidy is to be increased to £5,000,000, and still we are told that it is not enough; but what is more important from our point of view is that the method of obtaining the subsidy is to be changed. Previously it has come direct from the Treasury, and I think it is fair to say that the Income Tax payers—the wealthy portion of the community—have paid a fair share of the £3,800,000 which came from the Treasury last year. In future that money is to come out of a levy of ¾d. a lb. on imported chilled beef, and to that extent the amount coming from the Treasury is to be reduced. Consequently, it is fair to argue that the Income Tax payer will be relieved of taxation to that extent. That does not surprise me, for it is in strict accordance with the Chancellor's policy. Every year his Budget has indicated that he is interested in decreasing the amount of direct taxation and placing the burden on the backs of the poor. In this question of the subsidy, the Chancellor is carrying out the same policy of putting on to the backs of the poor that which he is taking off the backs of the rich. I am informed, moreover, that the increased taxation on food alone, since the present Government have been in power, has increased by £20,000,000, and it is now to be increased by the £3,800,000 obtained by the levy. In the case of general commodities used by the working class, a sum of about £80,000,000 has been imposed. The policy of raising this money by a levy means the carrying out of that same policy of transferring the burden of taxation on to the working class of the country.
With regard to the meat itself, there has been some argument as to whether the poor people of the country really consume the imported chilled beef which is to be affected by the levy. I did not quite understand the intervention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and the figures he gave in this matter, but I think it is fair to say that this chilled beef, whether or not it be sold to the poorest of the poor, is in the


main sold to the working class. Its main feature is that it is cheaper than home-produced beef, and that is the reason working-class people buy it, not because they prefer it. Working-class people, particularly in the mining community with which I am acquainted, like the best beef possible, but I am afraid that for a good many years now they have had to buy imported chilled and frozen beef because they have not had sufficient money to buy any other. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, to explain in more detail what he means when he says that the poorest or the poor do not consume this imported chilled beef on which the levy of ¾d. a lb. is to be imposed.
Another feature on which I would like to comment is that the levy will work out at about 7s. a cwt., and I am told that it represents a duty of 20 per cent. on the price of imported chilled beef. That is a fairly stiff proposition. Hon. Members opposite have tried to-night, as they did the last time this matter was discussed, to prove that the ¾d. a lb. will not go on to the price of the beef. I do not know whether it will or not, but I think it will. On the last occasion on which we debated this question, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) pointed out that the organisation with which he was connected had already sent him evidence of quotations of goods they were buying in future which showed that the prices had gone up by as much as 7 to 18 per cent. weeks before the duty was imposed. With regard to the question whether the importers of Argentine beef will pay the ¾d. a lb. or not, I would like to draw attention to a statement made by the Minister of Agriculture yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman is not so sure that the importer is going to pay it, or that the Argentine Government will pay it. He said:
I am not going to talk at all about the ¾d. per lb. duty on beef from abroad. Hon. Members can form their own opinions as to the effect which that will have upon the industry. It has been asserted that it will be of no benefit to British agriculture, because the Argentine Government will pay a subsidy to their producers which will equalise the disadvantage under which the duty places them. I would much rather wait the event than prophesy at the present moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January. 1937; col. 193, Vol. 319.]

Apparently he is not very sure that the importer is going to pay. Indeed, he is pretty sure that it is the people at this end who are going to pay—and so is everybody else who knows anything about it. We are justified in assuming that this beef is going to cost the poor people of the country ¾d. a lb. more. I understand that the President of the Board of Trade has been interested in these negotiations, and probably so has the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. My mind went back, as did the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes) to the election speeches made by the President of the Board of Trade in 1931. An outstanding feature of the right hon. Gentleman's speeches was his declaration that he would never approve of the imposition of duties on food of this description. The President of the Board of Trade was then looked upon almost as the arch-apostle of Free Trade and if he had a second in command, it was probably the hon. Gentleman who is his second in command at the Board of Trade to-day. They both preached the doctrine of Free Trade. I wonder what do they think about their previous principles now when they are imposing this ¾d. levy, this 20 per cent. duty, upon one of the chief foodstuffs of the people.
I was rather surprised yesterday at the hostility shown to the President of the Board of Trade in some of the speeches made from the benches opposite. In spite of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman and his lieutenant had swallowed all their principles and virtually eaten dirt, in spite of the fact that they had agreed to this duty for raising a £3,500,000 subsidy for the agriculturists, the agriculturists were not satisfied. No, they are after the blood of the President of the Board of Trade. The hon. Member for Kincardine and Western (Sir M. Barclay-Harvey) said:
I do not think the Board of Trade is the Department which ought to have the initiative"—
that is, with regard to restriction of imports—
I speak as an agricultural Member who has watched the actions of the Board of Trade for the last five or six years, and I believe I express the opinion of every agricultural Member in this House when I say that we distrust the entire Board of Trade from the President down to the last-


joined charwoman, in this matter."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 231, Vol. 319.]
That does not appear to be very charitable on the part of hon. Members opposite. The hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner), who was anxious to interrupt a few moments ago, also spoke about this matter, and I was amazed at such remarks coming from him of all people, because he is a shipowner as well as an agriculturist, and the President of the Board of Trade has given £2,000,000 to shipping, out of which the hon. and gallant Member has done very well. An hon. Member on this side pointed out not many weeks ago the profits which had been made out of the £2,000,000 shipping subsidy, and the firm represented by the hon. and gallant Member was given as one which had made more out of it than any other. Yet this is the gratitude which he has to the President of the Board of Trade. He said:
It is a little disconcerting to representatives of large agricultural constituencies to know that it is the President of the Board of Trade whose duty it is to regulate imports.…the President of the Board of Trade is not credited by the agricultural community with too ardent a desire to help their important industry. —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1937; col. 279, Vol. 319.]
That appears to me to smack of base ingratitude. That is not the end of it. I am told that at the Farmers' Union annual meeting yesterday they were after the blood of the President of the Board of Trade with regard to his seat. They are sick of him and want to put up somebody to oppose him. That seems to me to be very unworthy, and I hope that next time the President of the Board of Trade is putting on these duties after he has swallowed all his principles and professions, he will think about the gratitude expressed by his present friends who sit behind him and will perhaps argue with himself whether it is, after all, worth while. What effect will this ¾d. per lb. have upon the working-class people who have to pay it? I am assuming that they will have to pay it. I do not think that the rich people eat this meat. We do not eat it in the House of Commons. When there are complaints about things costing too much we are told that we buy the best British beef, and so on. It is generally admitted that British beef is better

than imported chilled beef, which I am sure the rich people do not eat. Whether it is eaten by the poorest of the poor as represented by old age pensioners, agricultural labourers, and people on the means test, I do not know, but it is eaten in the main by people who work for wages and whose wages in the main are pitifully inadequate.
We are now complaining about the physique of the younger generation, and the Government are going to take drastic action in order to improve it. We were told during the last War that we were a C.3 population, and the Government promised that it would never happen again. It has happened, however, and now that we are threatened with another war we are getting alarmed about the physique of the younger generation. Is the imposition of this ¾d. per lb. on meat likely to help the Government in this matter? Will this imposition help in improving the physique of the people? If the Government want to make a success of their efforts to improve physique I should have thought they would have regarded this point and been reluctant to impose this tax. Have the Government had regard to the statements made by that well known scientist, Sir John Orr? The hon. and gallant Member for Buckrose (Major Braithwaite) denied that the poorest of the poor would pay it. But if we leave them out there are still, according to Sir John Orr, approximately 20,000,000 people who are living on incomes insufficient to maintain a decent standard of life, and insufficient to buy the home-produced beef which hon. Members opposite are so anxious to sell—and at a profit, as someone remarks. As Sir John On says, half the population cannot afford the sum of 9s. a week for food which is necessary according to his calculations, and there are nearly 5,000,000 people who cannot spend more than 4s. a week on food, while inquiry shows that there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed whose expenditure on food is from 2s. to 3s. 6d. a week. The diet of those people is deficient in every way. They cannot keep fit and are losing their hold on health.
As the hon. Member for East Ham South said, Sir John Orr has also pointed out that the consumption of meat, probably the best home-produced meat, among the people whose income is sufficient to


maintain a high standard of life is about 50 oz. per week, while among masses of other people it is 20 oz. and less. The same comparison applies almost to every other commodity which people have to eat in order to maintain health. The wealthy people who are going to benefit by this change at the expense of the poor not only have the advantage in meat but in everything else. They consume four eggs a week to the poor man's one and a half, and fruit to the value of is. 8d. compared with the poor man's 2½d. worth. But this advantage is still not enough according to hon. Members opposite, and it is to be increased further by the imposition of ¾d. per lb. on imported chilled beef.
There is another question in which hon. Members opposite are interested. I wonder whether the President of the Board of Trade and his lieutenant, and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and all the other people who were engaged in these negotiations had regard to it. Hon. Members opposite are interested in recruiting. They make a great shout about it in the country and in this House. Figures were given yesterday showing that we are 19,000 people short, I think, but I am told that half the people who offer themselves for enlistment have to be rejected for physical reasons, and experiments made in the last few months have shown that part of the defects for which they have to be rejected arise from lack of food. It is not a question of an ill-balanced diet, not the case that they eat too much of one thing; their physical condition arises from their being short of food. So the experiment was made of feeding them, of giving them plenty, and the latest report shows that that experiment has been attended with excellent results. As hon. Members opposite are interested in this question of physical fitness, I would ask whether regard was paid to that aspect of the matter when the question of putting ¾d. per lb. on beef was under consideration.
Finally, I should like to ask in connection with this subsidy, and the other millions which have been paid in subsidies, What about the agricultural labourer's share of it? Where does he come in? Yesterday the hon. Member for Leominster told us in glowing terms how anxious the farmer was to pay

higher wages to his labourers. I say that he is not.

Sir E. Shepperson: I said yesterday that at the meeting of the Huntingdonshire Agricultural Wages Board the representative of labour proposed that wages should be raised 1s. a week, and said, "I will ask the representative of the farmers to second that." And the representative of the farmers got up and seconded it.

Mr. Paling: I am not disagreeing with the hon. Member. I do not wish to misrepresent him. That is what he said, and the general impression given by his speech was that if farmers could do so they would pay better wages. I say they would not. My experience as a trade unionist organiser is that the agricultural labourers, like the miners and all the rest, get only as much as they can force out of the farmers or the coalowners. If it were not for the Agricultural Wages Act being in force the wages of agricultural labourers would be much lower than they are.

Sir E. Shepperson: I am sorry to interrupt again, but in the county in which I live we pay weekly 3s. more than the Wages Board rate, and we pay that voluntarily.

Mr. Paling: I am not disputing it. I do not dispute the other fact which the hon. Gentleman mentioned; I merely point out that he mentions it because it is the outstanding fact. It is the exception, and not the rule. The hon. Gentleman is like many other hon. Gentlemen; when he wants to prove his case he tries to do so by citing the exception and not the rule. What applies to mining applies also to agriculture. One knows the wages that the agricultural labourers are getting, and that they have not received any share of subsidy. We are always told in sonorous terms by hon. Members opposite: "You put the money in at the top and it percolates down to the bottom."

Mr. Turton: Agricultural wages are higher now than they were when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power.

Mr. Paling: The best thing ever done for the agricultural labourers was to put into operation the Agricultural Wages Act, but in spite of that their wages now are so low that hon. Members opposite ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Sir E. Shepperson: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but I recollect the Bill which he and his party put before the House to pay a minimum wage of 30s. to the agricultural labourers. Wages generally throughout the country are now 2S. more than that figure.

Mr. Paling: And I recollect also that 30s. per week was too high for hon. Members opposite and they tried to stop not only the 30s. but the Measure itself. I would like to ask also, What about the housing of the agricultural labourer? Subsidies have been given to farmers and landlords, but the only subsidy, I think I am right in saying, which has been given to the agricultural labourer, even indirectly, was the subsidy given to rural housing by the late Labour Government. One of the first things which the National Government did after they came into power was to take off that subsidy, and in spite of the pitiful state in which thousands of agricultural labourers are living, from a housing point of view, nothing has been clone except on general lines. Hon. Members come here and are vociferous in their demands for more and more money and in their threats to the Treasury of what they will do if they do not get it. They might have some regard to these things. If subsidies have to be given to industry, at least let hon. Members see that their professed love for the agricultural labourer is carried out in their action, as it has not been up to the present time. I hope that we defeat the intention of the Government to-night.

10.34 p.m.

Dr. Burgin: No hon. Member in any part of the House can possibly complain as to the width of the discussion. We are discussing a Bill—perhaps I might read the title of it, as we seem to have lost sight of it a little during the last few speeches. It is entitled: "The Beef and Veal Customs Duties Bill." It is a Bill of two Clauses, most of which is machinery, and which provides for raising Customs duties on a range of beef and veal meat products, the duty being in part an ad valorem duty to avoid the setting out of that range of varying products in detail. All the machinery of the Bill is common form Customs Bill machinery, so that what we are really discussing is Sub-section (1) of Clause 1, which deals with the meat products and the rates of duty. It is quite clear in this House

that there is objection by some hon. Members to any tax on anything, however it works. There are those who object to subsidies and levies; there are those who object specifically to taxes on food; and there are hon. Members representing different industries who suggest that taxation on any particular commodity does not go far enough to protect that particular industry. We have had all those views put forward to-night. We have had a good deal of theory, and perhaps I may be excused in the concluding stages if I look a little more closely at the facts, become a little more realist, and discuss what is really the intention of the Government.
Hon. Members talk as if this Bill had no connection with the Bill which immediately preceded it, and as if this tax or this measure of protection were something entirely divorced from any longer plan. The facts are that since the year 1934, when the Cattle Subsidy was first granted, the proposal of the Government was that a levy should be introduced. It was announced clearly in Command Papers 4651 and 4828, and the whole basis on which the House was induced to grant to the cattle industry a subsidy was an assurance that a levy would be imposed in order that part of that contribution by the taxpayer should be collected from some other source. So far from this Bill being some new method of indirect taxation to raise some express duty of a novel kind, it is implementing an assurance and undertaking given to the House, at the time when it voted money for the cattle industry, that some part of this levy should in due course be refunded by those concerned.
What is the position? Agriculture, a great industry, a world industry, as an hon. Member very properly said, demands a very definite Government contribution, and that has been laid down from this Box by Ministers of Agriculture from time to time that the order of preference must be, first, the home producer, secondly, the Dominion producer, and, thirdly, the foreign producer. It is not easy to reconcile the interests of these three contributors to a great industry like the agricultural industry, providing the staple foods of the people of this country. Has the House a realisation of the magnitude of the trade in chilled beef alone? Millions of hundredweights of this chilled


beef pass through the ports of this country. One of the most essential interests of the consumer is that that great trade should be an organised trade, that it should be a trade in which those who contribute their services should be capable of earning a reasonable reward. It would be a great disservice to the consumer if shipments from the Empire and from the Argentine were capricious. If they did not come, if they ceased altogether, if there were one moment of scarcity and another moment of over-supply, that would not be a service to the consumer at all.
The whole essence of the consumer's interest is that there should be regularity of supply, and that the interests of the home producer of fat cattle, of the Dominion producer in the same line of business, and of the great world outside, should be properly apportioned and treated as part and parcel of a great problem. That is the picture that the House must have before it when considering the magnitude of certain duties and the method of their imposition. Here we have this position. The Argentine Republic does a great trade with this country in many commodities. Negotiations with the Argentine were long and difficult. Let the House be under no misapprehension. Had there not been a successful conclusion to these negotiations, the duties asked for in this Bill would have been immeasurably higher. It is the conclusion of the Agreement with the Argentine that has permitted this scale of duty.
Having endeavoured to strike a proper balance between the needs of the industry here, it is desired to recognise the needs of the industry of the Dominions, who are entitled under Ottawa to an expanding share of our markets, and the concern of this country as the seller of manufactured goods to the entire world without restriction—having endeavoured to reconcile those various interests, a scale of duties, modest in themselves, producing about £3,000,000 in all, is submitted to the House as part of the Government's general contribution to the livestock problem. It is asked, How are these duties going to be operated and what will the effect of them be on prices? Who will pay these extra duties? The duties have been in force since 16th December. I do not know

how hon. Members have made their inquiries, but I have the figures for Smithfield of these kinds of meat for every day up to the date when the duties were imposed and for every day since the duties till to-day, because I knew that some Members would be kind enough to the occupant of the Front Bench to suggest that he did not know the figures. They provide the answer to the questions that have been put by various Members in various parts of the House.
Who is it that contributes to the arrival of foreign chilled and frozen beef? Let us keep to chilled beef. Who contributes in the Argentine to the chilled beef arriving in a London warehouse? There is the actual farmer and the farm labourer, there is the one who does the processing, the factory end of it if you like so to describe it, and there is then, apart from the steamship company bringing the meat to this country, the whole range of distributors, the importer, the agent, the wholesaler and the retailer. There are all those different channels through which this meat is going to pass before you get near the possibility of the consumer buying it. What is the use of saying that the whole of the duty of ¾d. is going to be paid by the consumer? Long before it gets anywhere near the consumer, contributions to the duty will have been paid. [Interruption.] That is the result of experience. That is the view of those who are in the trade. That is the view of those who are in a position to say what is the result of this realist experiment in taxation, and those realists are worth dozens of theorists.
Hon. Members will be interested to find that on several days since the duty was imposed the price in the year 1937 has been less than in the year 1936. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was right when he said it was too early to dogmatise as to what will be the effect. I do not ask the House to take from the figures that I give them the conclusion that those figures will necessarily always remain, but it is a factor that I am entitled to put. As against the theory of what will happen, I can give the facts of what has happened from the 16th December down to date. Those figures, which are available to hon. and right hon. Members, do not carry out the assertions made that this levy will be passed on entirely to the consumer.

Sir Percy Harris: Entirely!

Dr. Burgin: I am eminently fair. That there is a possibility that some part ought to be contributed by the consumer, I do not for a moment deny. We are endeavouring here to make a contribution of a general average character to the salvage of the livestock industry, and it would be right that the consumer should make a contribution to that result. I have never for a moment wanted to contest that eventuality. A good deal of the time of the discussion on this Bill has been taken up by arguments as to what classes of the community consume this or that particular type of meat. That is perhaps rather a barren discussion, and I am not sure that we get very far by exploring those avenues.

Mr. Barnes: Are we to have those figures?

Dr. Burgin: I have no objection to circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the figures for each day since the i6th December, the price of Argentine chilled beef on Smithfield Market per stone of 8 lbs. I do not see how the House can deal with them otherwise.

Mr. Jagger: Is it possible to give the average for the whole period and the average for the corresponding period?

Dr. Burgin: I will tell the hon. Member exactly what I have in my hand. It is a statement of the daily prices of Argentine chilled beef on Smithfield Market per stone of 8 lbs. for each day, and I have taken a line drawn by myself—the figures go a long way further back—from the i6th December, 1935, down to the 21st January, 1937. My figures are in two comparative columns-1935 and 1936, and, when we pass to the end of the year, 1936 and 1937. These are the figures and I should have thought that the convenient method would have been, that I should cause them to be inserted in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I will adopt whatever the House thinks is the reasonable method.

Mr. Woods: If the hon. Gentleman will give the figures for the month previous, it will help us.

Dr. Burgin: I have no objection. I will go back to the 4th November, 1935, if the hon. Member so desires. That is to say, putting the 1935 and 1936 figures

side by side in a column. That is, as hon. Members wish. I do not want in the least to make any false points. I am merely taking such examples as this —that on the 8th January, 1936, for instance, a stone of 8 lbs. of Argentine chilled beef on Smithfield Market made a price of 3s. 2d., and in 1937 the price was 3s. 1d. This is after the duty has been enforced and something like three weeks have run. Take to-day's price. It is 3s. 5d., and on the corresponding date of last year it was 3s. 5d. I am not going to draw any conclusions from a set of figures running for four or five weeks. There may have been an element of forestalling, and, on the facts coming forward, an advance of ranch prices in the Argentine. These are all matters to be investigated, but for the moment, with the duty having been enforced since the 16th December, there is not the evidence of a rise in prices that hon. Members seem to assume must necessarily go hand-in-hand with the imposition of a tariff.

Mr. Alexander: Does that apply to canned beef?

Dr. Burgin: Canned beef is in a different category. The figures I am giving are expressly for Argentine chilled beef. I will have no hesitation in dealing with canned beef at any time the right hon. Gentleman wishes, but in that case there is a different proposition; because the duty has been increased by only 10 per cent. other considerations apply, and there has been a substantial increase in the price of canners. The proposition I am endeavouring to make is that this Bill is the implementing of a promise. It is putting into legislative force the system of a levy which was part and parcel of the negotiations with the meat-producing countries, and was part of the basis of the Argentine Agreement. This is the method of giving it Parliamentary sanction. The consumption of this type of beef shows that in the various areas of this country working-class people, if they can, procure home-killed beef.
It is not the case, either on aggregate or proportion, that the greater quantity of this foreign chilled beef is consumed by the working-class population. It is most interesting to find out what boroughs in the Metropolitan area consume this chilled beef. If hon. Members made the inquiry they would be surprised to find how high up Kensington comes. The


main argument I am trying to give to the House is the idea that these duties, not high in themselves, form part of a main plan, and part of a general contribution; that it is right that all classes should contribute to that contribution; that the total amount these taxes will produce is something like £3,000,000 out of the £5,000,000

that is the subsidy to the livestock industry. With that explanation I hope the House will agree to the Second Reading of the Bill.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 174; Noes, 110.

Division No. 50.]
AYES.
[10.55 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Palmer, G. E. H.


Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.
Ellis, Sir G.
Peaks, 0.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Elmley, Viscount
Peat, C. U.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Petherick, M.


Apsley, Lord
Everard, W. L.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Assheton, R.
Fildes, Sir H.
Radford, E. A.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Fyfe, D. P. M.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gluckstein, L. H.
Ramsbotham, H.


Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Ramsden, Sir E.


Balniel, Lord
Gratton, Col Rt. Hon. J.
Rankin, R.


Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Beaumont, M. W. (Aylesbury)
Grimston, R. V.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)


Boulton, W. W.
Guy, J. C. M.
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Hamilton, Sir G. C.
Remer, J. R.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.
Hanbury, Sir C.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Hannah, I. C.
Ropner. Colonel L.


Bracken, B.
Harbord, A.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)


Braithwaite, Major A. N.
Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Brass, Sir W.
Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.
Salmon, Sir I.


Brown, Brig-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Hepworth, J.
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)


Bull, B. B.
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.


Burghley, Lord
Holmes, J. S.
Scott, Lord William


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Hopkin, D.
Shakespeare, G. H.


Butler, R. A.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Cartland, J. R. H.
James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.


Castlereagh, Viscount
Keeling, E. H.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Kerr, J- Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Channon, H.
Kimball, L.
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Spens. W. P.


Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Clarry, Sir Reginald
Leckie, J. A.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Clydesdale, Marquess of
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)
Liddall, W. S.
Sutcliffe, H.


Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Touche, G. C.


Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (Wst'r S. G'gs)
Loftus, P. C.
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Lovat-Fraser, J. A
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Courtauld, Major J. S.
Lyons, A. M.
Turton, R. H.


Craven-Ellis, W.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Wakefield, W. W.


Crooke, J. S.
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
M'Connell, Sir J.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)


Crowder, J. F. E.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Warrender, Sir V.


Davies, C. (Montgomery)
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
McKie, J. H.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Dawson, Sir P.
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.
Wells, S. R.


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Denville, Alfred
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Dixon, Capt. Rt. Hon. H.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Moreing, A. C.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)
Wragg, H.


Dugdale, Major T. L.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wright, Squadron-Leader J. A. C.


Duggan, H. J.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col A. J.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Duncan, J. A. L.
Nail, Sir J.



Eastwood, J. F.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Eckersley, P. T.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert




Ward and Captain Hope.




NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke
Ammon, C. G.
Bellenger, F. J.


Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Broad, F. A.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Bromfield, W.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)
Banfield, J. W.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)


Adamson, W. M.
Barnes, A. J.
Burke, W. A.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Batey, J.
Cape, T.




Charleton, H. C.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Quibell, D. J. K.


Chater, D.
Kelly, W. T.
Ridley, G.


Cluse, W. S.
Kirby, B. V.
Riley, B.


Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Ritson, J.


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Lathan, G.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)


navies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Lawson, J. J.
Rowson, G.


navies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Leach, W.
Salter, Dr. A.


Dobbie, W.
Lee, F.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Dunn, E. (Bother Valley)
Leonard, W.
Sexton. T. M.


Ede, J. C.
Leslie, J. R.
Shinwell, E.


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Logan, D. G.
Short, A.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
Lunn, W.
Silkin, L.


Frankel, D.
McEntee, V. La T.
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)


Gallacher, W.
McGhee, H. G.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Gardner, B. W.
MacLaren, A.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Maclean, N.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Green, W. H. (Deptford)
MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Tinker, J. J.


Grenfell, D. R.
Marshall, F.
Viant, S. P.


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Messer, F.
Walkden, A. G.


Groves, T. E.
Montague, F.
Watkins, F. C.


Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
Morrison, R, C. (Tottenham, N.)
Watson, W. McL.


Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Muff, G.
Westwood, J.


Hardie, G. D.
Naylor, T. E.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Harris, Sir P. A.
Noel-Baker, P. J.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Paling, W.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Parker, J.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Parkinson, J. A.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Holdsworth, H.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.



Hollins, A.
Potts, J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.-


Jlagger, J.
Price, M. P.
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.


Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Pritt, D. N.



Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — AIRCRAFT FACTORY (WHITE WALTHAM).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

11.4 p.m.

Mr. Lawson: I want to raise the question of which I gave notice this afternoon. The House will remember that a question was put to the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Air concerning a shadow factory that it was reported was to be established at White Waltham, Maidenhead. I saw that announcement myself in the Press, and it seemed to me incredible that there could be any truth in it. The Under-Secretary of State confirmed that statement to-day and explained it on the ground that it was found that the delays and disadvantages of selecting any alternative site would seriously prejudice the success of the enterprise. The House is well aware of the state of things which obtain in many parts of the country known as the Special Areas, and it is most lamentable that at a time when there is supposed to be a boom conditions are certainly not improving in

most of these areas. Here is an agricultural area in which is to be established a factory which, we understand, will employ between 3,500 and 5,000 people. That is a town of about 20,000 inhabitants. There is no question that these workers will have to be brought from other areas. It is most significant that at a time when the Government are supposed to be preparing a special Bill which will deal in some extraordinary fashion with these Special Areas a Government Department should take a step which will establish a new community in an altogether new area without any regard to Government policy.
What is going to happen? Houses will have to be built as well as new schools, sewerage and drainage will have to be provided, all the necessary amenities of such a community will have to be created by the local authority. In areas like South Wales, Durham, Lancashire and Scotland, local authorities have built houses for the people, provided drainage and sewerage, built schools, provided water, and, generally speaking, have gone to a great outlay in order to produce citizens, and just when they are worth anything at all they are to be sent down to this new area where the Government are placing a factory. I have not much time, and as I want other hon. Members to speak I will say just this. What is happening is that a Government Department which is spending State


money is doing what it likes without regard to any other circumstances. It is bad enough that private employers should establish themselves in the South, and there has been great disturbance throughout the country about it, but at least they had the excuse that, as far as they were concerned, it was a paying concern. We now have the State actually confirming the action of those who have neglected the Special Areas. The Government have been appealing to private employers to go to the Special Areas, and now they allow a Department to establish a great factory that is not in a Special Area.
Let me say, in conclusion, that there has long been in the Special Areas a suspicion, growing deeper and deeper, that the private employer has not gone to the Midlands and the South because it pays him, but because it meets his social and personal purposes, regardless of what happens in the country at large. I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman cannot on this occasion say that it is because of grounds of vulnerability that this factory is being established in such a place, and he will have to spend a long time in eradicating from the minds of the average Member the feeling that this factory is being established in that area because it suits the personal and social life of those who have to do with the Air Force, because they are nearer to polite society, and that it is more for their own particular social side of life than for the Air Ministry, for Defence or for the wellbeing of the country.

11.12 p.m.

Mr. Annesley Somerville: This is a matter which is of essential importance to my constituents. Let me say at once that if my constituents and I were convinced that we had been given any real reason why this factory should be established in a purely agricultural district, we should regret it very deeply, but we should acquiesce. We have received no such reason. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air was asked this afternoon why this factory should be established at White Waltham, and the reason he gave was that it was necessary to have it near the parent firms. What are the parent firms? I understand that one is the Bristol firm, and another is the Hillman firm at Coventry. White

Waltham is a long way from Bristol and Coventry. The policy of the Government —a policy which we have been engaged in forming during these last two days—is to encourage agriculture. By putting this factory at White Waltham they are doing the Utmost disservice to agriculture.
It is not merely a question of the 100 acres or 200 acres of fine agricultural land that they are taking and the fact that they are proposing to run a line of rails right along to join up the site with the Great Western Railway—those are comparatively small matters; but anyone who has anything to do with agriculture knows what great difficulty there is at the present time in getting skilled young agricultural labourers. If there is established in an area a factory with high rates of wages, it will be quite impossible to get agricultural labourers, and the whole of the agriculture of that part will be disorganised. I regret to say that that is what the Government are doing, while professing to encourage agriculture. It is also supposed to be an, object of the policy of the Government not to encourage industry to come South. They are encouraging industry to come South. It is also a point of the policy of the Government that it is not their object to enlist at once the whole of industry in the production of armaments. Their object is to secure the production of armaments with as little disturbance as possible to existing industries. Yet they propose to deal a deadly blow at agriculture in East Berkshire by putting this factory in a place which is utterly unsuited to it.
I have only heard one reason given by the Minister for putting this factory on this site. It is that there is already an aerodrome there and that the aerodrome is an essential adjunct to the factory. The aerodrome does not interfere much with the amenities of the place; it does not employ a great many people; but surely there are scores of sites with aerodromes where this factory could be established. In time of war, this factory would be working full blast, and would act as a magnet to hostile aircraft, which would be guided over West London by the Great Western Railway and the course of the river. But the Air Ministry do not seem to think that that


is an objection. Apart from these disadvantages, we do not want the agricultural life of the district to be disorganised and disturbed. Furthermore, on this site there is no housing, no drainage, no proper water supply, no lighting. All that is to be provided by the Air Ministry, and that, I deliberately say, is a waste of public money. Surely the common-sense procedure would be to put this factory where the houses already exist, where the supply of labour already exists and where there are the necessary amenities.
With regard to labour, as I have said, this is a purely agricultural district, with the exception of three small towns. In Windsor there is practically no unemployment and, at any rate, it has none of the labour that would be suitable. Maidenhead is a residential town and there is no suitable labour there. Bracknell is a market town which would be gravely damaged by the factory. This site has none of the necessary amenities, and it would be necessary to import the required labour, probably from 3,000 to 5,000 persons, instead of going to where the labour already is and where it would not be necessary to build houses and provide drainage and other facilities
There are many other things I might say about this matter, but I conclude by saying to the Government that my constitutents and I are definitely opposed to this scheme, which would force upon us artifically what, as my hon. Friend has said, will become an industrial town of some 20,000 inhabitants, completely change the character of this agricultural district and interfere with the production of food in the area by making it impossible to get agricultural labour. The plan has not yet gone far and it would be possible for the Air Ministry and the Government to reconsider this matter. J plead most urgently with them that they should do so.

11.20 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Sir Philip Sassoon): The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) has raised this matter with sincerity, and I believe that there is no Member in the House who is not behind him as to the desirability, and indeed the necessity, of doing everything possible for the distressed areas. The subject, however, should be looked at as a whole and not

merely with regard to the location of a particular factory. I would like in this connection to state what the facts are with regard to orders that have been placed by Service Departments in the distressed areas over a certain period. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about this factory?"] I think that the orders placed by Service Departments apply very much to this discussion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The orders placed by Service Departments since 1st April, 1935, amount to £45,000,000. These are direct contracts and do not include subcontracts, about which Service Departments make a point that they should be put by main contractors in distressed areas. [Interruption.] We are discussing contracts placed by Service Departments. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, discuss Maidenhead."] These contracts placed by Service Departments are under continual observation by the Government.

Mr. Mainwaring: On a point of Order. Is it right for the Minister to reply to a question which has not been put to him?

Mr. Speaker: The Minister must be allowed to make his own reply.

Sir P. Sassoon: I have been dealing with contracts in distressed areas, which are relevant to this question. What is the situation about this factory, and why has this particular site been selected? As the House knows, it is an essential part of the Shadow Scheme that factories should be erected—satellite factories—adjacent to the firms which will have to turn over, in this case to aircraft production, during a time of war. It is, therefore, natural that these factories should be erected as near as possible to the existing works, and erected in places which make it convenient for the managing firms to do what they think necessary. It was, therefore, necessary that we should be in agreement with the managing firm as to where the firm's factories should be erected.
This particular firm is situated in Coventry. If this factory had been built adjacent to the firm's factory at Coventry, not a word would have been said. The firm, Messrs. Rootes, wished it to be erected next to their works at Coventry. There is, however, already a great deal of congestion in Coventry, and it was not thought advisable to allow


another factory to be erected there. The aeroplane factory must obviously be near an aerodrome. When the aeroplanes have been built they have to be tested on an aerodrome and flown off the aerodrome, and obviously it would be difficult and uneconomic if the aeroplanes had to be built in one factory and then transported to another, there to be assembled and tested and flown off. The number of aerodromes that are suitably placed for these shadow factories is very limited. Here is an ideal site for an aerodrome of this kind. It is an aerodrome which is at present used for a civil school. It is not a service aerodrome, nor is it a very busy civil aerodrome. It is, therefore, an ideal aerodrome for the purpose.

Mr. Attlee: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us the mileage between Coventry and White Waltham? What is the area within which there is no aerodrome which is regarded as suitable?

Sir P. Sassoon: I think it is desirable that the site should be convenient for both firms, and in this case the firms have been consulted and agree that this is a suitable site.

Mr. Attlee: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us the mileage between Coventry and White Waltham and between Bristol and White Waltham?

Sir P. Sassoon: I do not know off hand —[HON. MEMBERS: "100 miles "]—but other sites have been examined and that site has been considered the most suitable.

Mr. Lawson: Which is the other firm?

Sir P. Sassoon: The firm at Bristol The site was considered a suitable one by the managing firm at Coventry, and by the parent firm at Bristol, and it is a site which enjoys the advantage of being near a good railway service. It is essential that it should be suitably placed between these two firms, because the firm at Bristol is the parent firm for these aeroplanes which are going to be built.
As I have said this site satisfies the conditions, and was chosen after consultation with the firms responsible for fulfilling the contracts. Various other sites were considered, but this one was ultimately adopted as being particularly

suitable, and one of the reasons was that there was this aerodrome available. With regard to the danger area which has been mentioned, unfortunately, with the existing range of modern aircraft, there are very few sites in the country which are not vulnerable. This factory has the advantage, anyhow, of being in an isolated position and behind the defences of London.
With regard to the labour, we know that there are difficulties in obtaining suitable labour for this type of factory in many districts after the period of the industrial depression, but we explored first of all from a technical point of view and then explored what labour can be provided. The firm concerned have had a great deal of experience and are satisfied that they can get the labour that they need for this particular factory. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] That matter is being dealt with by the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Labour.
Hon. Members have just said that there is no unemployment in the district at all and that therefore the labour necessary for this factory will have to be imported.

Mr. A. Somerville: It is extremely limited.

Sir P. Sassoon: I have looked into the figures of Reading Employment Exchange for July and December. I find that in July, for the Reading district alone, the total number of unemployed was over 2,000 and in December was about 1,500, unskilled and semi-skilled labourers. Apart from that, there is a great number of unskilled and semi-skilled engineers who travel up every day from Reading to London and back.
It is obvious that many of these people would sooner have employment near their homes. There is no question of drafting a large force of labour into the district. Hon. Members have also said that we have done a great disservice to agriculture in this district. We have bought 90 acres, of which 70 acres are agricultural land—a narrow strip along the aerodrome.

Mr. MacLaren: How much did you pay for it?

Sir P. Sassoon: Although one deplores that we have had to take this agricultural


land, I think the fact that we have taken 70 acres cannot be said to have disorganised the whole agricultural life of the district. We are anxious to get on with the scheme, and we have to get these aeroplanes. We may be criticised for having this place, but if we had taken an aerodrome and factory in another place it would have meant delay in the produc-

tion of these aeroplanes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This is far more justifiable. I hope what I have said will have reassured the House.

Hon. Members: No.

It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.